"'Here is a letter for my mother,' said Mergy, his voice slightly tremulous. George took it without a word, and approaching the table, opened a small Bible, and seemed busy reading whilst his brother completed his toilet. On the first page that offered itself to his eyes, he read these words in his mother's handwriting; '1st May 1549, my son Bernard was born. Lord, conduct him in thy ways! Lord, shield him from all harm!' George bit his lip violently, and threw down the book. Bernard observed the gesture, and imagining that some impious thought had come into his brother's head, he gravely took up the Bible, put it in an embroidered case, and locked it in a drawer, with every mark of great respect. "'It is my mother's Bible,' he said. "The Captain paced the apartment, but made no reply." According to the established rule in such cases--a rule laid down for the especial behoof, benefit, and accommodation of romance writers--the hero of a hundred duels falls by the maiden sword of the tyro, who escapes with a slight wound. So signal a triumph makes the reputation of Mergy. His wound healed, and all danger of persecution by the powerful family of Comminges at an end, he reappears at court, and finds that he has in some sort inherited the respect and consideration formerly shown to his defunct rival. The politeness of the _raffines_ is as overpowering as their envy is ill concealed; and, as to the ladies, in those days the character of a successful duellist was a sure passport to their favour. The raw provincial, so lately unheeded, has but to throw his handkerchief, now that he has dabbled it in blood. But the only one of these sanguinary sultanas on whom Mergy bestows a thought, is not to be found. In vain does he seek, in the crowd of beauties who court his gaze, the pale cheek, blue eyes, and raven hair of Madame de Turgis. Soon after the duel, she had left Paris for one of her country seats, a departure attributed by the charitable to grief at the death of Comminges. Mergy knows better. Whilst laid up with his wound, and concealed in the house of an old woman, half doctress, half sorceress, he detected a masked lady, whom he recognised as De Turgis, performing for his cure, with the assistance of the witch, certain mysterious incantations. They had procured Comminges's sword, and rubbed it with scorpion oil, "the sovereign'st thing on earth" to heal the wound the weapon had inflicted. And there was also a melting of a wax figure, intended as a love charm; and from all that passed, Bernard could not doubt that the Countess had set her affections on him. So he waits patiently, and one morning, whilst his brother is reading the "Vie tres-horrifique de Pantagruel," and he himself is taking a guitar lesson from the Signor Uberto Vinibella, a wrinkled duenna brings him a scented note, closed with a gold thread, and a large green seal, bearing a Cupid with finger on lips, and the Spanish word, _Callad_, enjoining silence.