"And in those three days," replied the count, "this Bernard de Rohan, whom we were talking about just now, will have fair opportunity of visiting the bright lady, and even, perhaps, by the connivance of her fair mother, may carry her within the French frontier, and plead her father's promise at the court of the king." "Not by her mother's connivance," replied the marquis. "Her mother loves him as little as you do; and, even were he at the court of France to-morrow, her protest against the marriage would be sufficient to stop it. But, to guard against all danger, and, if possible, to put the mind of a suspicious man at ease, I will tell you that one great cause of my going hence is to prevent this Bernard de Rohan from setting foot within my walls. I know his coming: I know why he comes far better than you do. I have heard his motives and his views within this hour from one who is well acquainted with them, and, if he present himself at my gates, he will find a stern refusal till I return. Then I must see him, but I shall then be prepared. Will this satisfy you? If it do so, tell me at once; for it is high time that I should mount my horse, and quit this place without delay." Though, in reality, anything but satisfied, the Count de Meyrand expressed his consent to the proposal, determined in his own mind to watch all the proceedings of a confederate whom he could so little trust, even in the dark and tortuous schemes in which their interests were combined. He tried, as he parted from the marquis, to conceal his doubts lest they should betray his purposes; but that worthy gentleman was far too practised a reader of the human heart and human countenance to be so deceived; and when they separated, it was with the full conviction that each would endeavour to deceive and circumvent the other, unless some strong necessity continued to bind them together. "Now," thought the Marquis de Masseran, as he paused for a moment looking after the Count de Meyrand, "now for this priest. I must have more information from him: more full, more complete. Then what is to be done with him? It might be dangerous to confine him; and yet it were easy to say that he had held treasonable discourses. A fall from the walls might be as good as anything. I will speak with Geronimo about it." He had been standing with his back towards the castle and his eyes fixed upon the ground while he thus held parley with himself. On the other side of the valley, which was there profound, rose up the mountain, with the road into Piedmont winding along it, at the distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile, to use the ordinary expression, as the crow flies, but fully a mile by the road; and, as he ended his murmuring soliloquy, the Marquis of Masseran looked up in that direction. To his utter surprise and consternation when he did so, he beheld the figure of the priest walking quietly along the highway towards the lower ground of Savoy.