'Adieu, madame,' said I, bowing low, and while my heart seemed crushed or withered up within me, I gazed after her figure as it disappeared into the tower, where Lieutenant Ruthven escorted her and the female attendant to well-secured apartments, and placed sentinels at the doors and in the passages. The other prisoners, who proved to be Duke Charles's masters of the horse and household, with a councillor of the chamber of accounts at Nanci, and two valets, we secured elsewhere in one chamber, where, as they bear no other part in this narrative, we shall politely bid them adieu. 'Come, Blane,' said Dundrennan, proffering to me a huge cup of wine; 'be a man for the honour of Galloway. Drain off this--then away to bed and sleep. To-morrow you will awake more placid and composed.' 'Sleep!' I reiterated; 'she has a husband, Dundrennan.' 'Bah!' replied the wild young Lord; 'in your place, I would soon teach her to forget that trifling circumstance.' 'For shame, my Lord.' 'Well, this capture of to-night is most unpleasantly important.' 'How, Viscount?' 'I must, in obedience to orders, ride back to Seltz, that the Duc de Lavalette may be duly informed of it.' 'True--I had forgotten,' said I, biting my nether lip with anger, that any one, save myself, presumed to have an interest in the person of Marie Louise; but in about an hour after this, with four of Brissac's dragoons as an escort, Dundrennan left me for the French camp to report this seizure, which was deemed so important, that he was next day despatched to Paris for the special orders of King Louis concerning the disposal of my prisoners. Meanwhile let me relate how it fared with us at the solitary castle of Lutzelstein. CHAPTER LXX. A CATASTROPHE. Three days passed over, during which my fair prisoner remained in her apartments and I saw nothing of her. The little Duke, however, I met frequently, playing with the watchdog in the castle-yard, or with a hawk which was his favourite companion, and which, from the tower-head, he plumed and urged to fly at every feathered biped that came in view. He seemed a good-humoured, happy little boy, and handsome withal; but as he never approached me, and I--for my own reasons--cared not to cultivate his acquaintance, we never spoke, though he saluted me very courteously whenever we passed.