The Count de Meyrand bowed low, and, following to the door, he ordered apartments immediately to be prepared for his fair charge, and then took leave of her for the night, while a slight smile played upon his lip as he turned away, and he said in his heart, "If I could trust this man of Masseran, I would humour the girl, and see what might be done by softness. She smiled upon me this morning, and made me almost forget her former insolence. It were as well, however, to bring down this high temper; and, now the storm is somewhat roused, it may as well go on. No one can say I do her wrong in using some gentle force to bring her to Paris to the presence of her lawful king, who will soon judge whether that ring be to remain upon her finger or not." As he thus thought, he pictured to his own imagination the marriage of fair Isabel de Brienne with Bernard de Rohan annulled by the royal authority. He fancied his own claim to her hand heard and conceded. He thought of how her travelling alone with him by slow journeys across the whole of France might render her own consent a matter more of necessity than choice; and, with inward satisfaction, he revolved the air of cool indifference with which he would treat the whole proceedings, as if there were absolutely nothing on earth worth the attention of so high a gentleman. In the mean while Isabel de Brienne was led to her chamber by the hostess, who asked many a kindly question, not directly pertinent to the conversation which she had overheard, but tending to elicit the cause of that anxiety and distress of mind which she witnessed. Isabel did not satisfy her, it is true; but she replied so sweetly and gently, that the good woman went away with her mind made up that she was the most amiable young lady she had ever seen, and that she was, moreover, very much ill used by some one. Who that was she could not very well satisfy herself; but, nevertheless, she looked with no very favourable eye upon the Count de Meyrand, and made but short replies to the various questions which he asked her when she came down again. After giving various directions to the soubrette, to which that taciturn person replied less than ever, Isabel seated herself near the window in melancholy thought. Removed almost by force from Latour, where the good priest, Father Willand, expected to find her, and having been now fully convinced, by the conduct of this Count de Meyrand, that she was little better than a prisoner in his hands, she knew not whence to hope for succour or deliverance. There was many a dark and painful point in her situation on which we must not dwell; many a present and many a future danger to herself, to him she loved, and to their mutual happiness. The thoughts connected with these points mingled with the chief strain of her reflections, and rendered them, bitter as they were, still more bitter and grievous to be borne.