"There, madam," he said, as the scuffle of seizure and a very faint scream were heard, "they've got her! Your pure presence shall never more be polluted by her society. A naughty man old De Bouillon, and unaccustomed to the strict morality of France. Adieu!" "Adieu, sir!" said Louise; but there was a tone in her voice, or something in her manner, that called the attention of her visitor. He went up to her, laid his hand upon the fan, and revealed before him, beautiful from alarm and indignation, was the face of Louise de Bouillon! "So, madam! this was an excellent device, but I have more assistance at hand. Ho! Pierre! François!" he began to call. "I have another carriage in the yard--you sha'nt escape me so." "Stop, sir!" exclaimed Louise, and placed herself between him and the door. "These are not the arts of wooing we are used to in England. I expected more softness and persuasion." "Alas, madam, 'tis only the shortness of the opportunity that prevents me from making a thousand protestations. But, after all, what is the use of them? Ho! François!" As he said this, he approached nearer to Louise, and even laid his hand upon her arm. But with the quickness of lightning, she made a dart at the diamond-covered hilt of her assailant's sword, and pulling it from the sheath, stood with the glittering point within an inch of the Frenchman's eyes. "Back, back!" she cried, "or you are a dead man--or frog--or monkey--or whatever you are!" Each of these names was accompanied with a step in advance; and there was too savage a lustre in her look to allow the unfortunate baron to doubt for a moment that his life was in the highest peril. "Madam," he expostulated, "do be careful--'tis sharp as a needle." "Back, back!" she continued, advancing with each word upon his retreating steps--"you thread-paper--you doll-at-a-fair--you stuffed cockatoo--back, back!" And on arriving at the bed-room door, she gave a prodigiously powerful lunge in advance, and drove her victim fairly into the room, and, with an exclamation of pride and triumph, locked him in. But, exhausted with the excitement, she had only time to lay the sword on the table, wave the key three times round her head in sign of victory, and fall fainting into the arms of Cecil Hope, who at that moment rushed into the room. CHAPTER VI. The ceremony in the town-hall passed off with the greatest _éclât_; and the dinner was probably thought the finest part of the day's entertainment by all but the newly re-established noble himself. Flushed with the glories of the proceeding, and also with the wine he had swallowed to his own health and happiness, he sallied forth with his friends of the preceding day--except, of course, the Baron Beauvilliers--and, as he himself expressed it, was awake for anything, up to any lark. "A lark, says my lord?" inquired the Duke de Vieuxchateau.