And Lucienne . . . O God, Lucienne! image of all that was pure and untouched! . . . Yet even now he blamed her little. She was so young. She did not know. Hers was innocency wronged, lured into an attachment which was surely no more than a young girl’s fancy, a passing light entanglement from which he must protect her, which he must make her forget. Had she not written in her distress, pleading to be shielded from it—for so, in memory, he read her letter now. She would forget. . . . But Louis! That was different. It might be that it was with him, too, a passing affair, like so many others. The supposition seemed rather to aggravate than to lessen his guilt. And there was much to support the idea. How, if he really cared for her, could he have been so light-hearted these last few days since he parted from her? Damn him! he was equally a scoundrel either way! The Marquis raised himself and sat up, brushing the hair off his forehead with a sudden gesture. He had at that moment a very distinct vision of a certain copse at Chantemerle where there was a clearing, convenient and remote. There, among the saplings his father had planted, he saw himself and Louis facing each other, sword in hand. . . . But the solacing dream of steel was gone as quickly as it had come, and Gilbert flung himself down again, engulfed once more in the full tide of his anguish—an anguish all the bitterer, though he did not know it, for the self-condemnation which he had recently been meting out to himself. * * * * * * Between five and six in the afternoon he again heard the voice of his hostess and went down. “You can see your cousin,” said Madame Geffroi, with the air of one acceding to a pressing request, “since it appears that that is his relationship. He has been asking for you. And since they have been to search the house”—Gilbert gave an exclamation—“and gone away satisfied, it is quite safe. Come.” “Searched the house!” said Gilbert, stupefied. “But they have not been near me.” “I did not say they searched the house,” corrected the lady tartly. “I said they came to do so. They did not remain.” “Oh!” was all Château-Foix found to say, wondering how the representatives of the nation had been routed, but not in the least doubting the fact. “Don’t talk too much!” Madame Geffroi warned him, as she opened the bedroom door and pushed Gilbert in alone. The late afternoon sun was striking through the closed shutters in thin shafts full of dancing motes, yet the room seemed dark, and the Marquis stood a moment dazzled by the contrast. “Come here,” said Louis in a weak little voice from the bed. “Mon Dieu, how glad I am to see you!” Grown accustomed to the atmospheric effects, Gilbert stood looking down on this new Louis as he lay flat on his back—for in the short time since his mishap he seemed unaccountably altered.