They entered a great hall with a tiled floor and, above it at the back, a window of stained glass, some panes of which were broken--a hall in which there was no furniture except a plain oaken bench, that looked as though it had been used to chop wood upon; and on to this the Marquis de Chevagny sank, exhausted already, while Bertie, saddened at such a home-coming as this, stood by to cheer and comfort him if possible. "This is not as I left it," the old man said as his glance roved round the spacious but empty hall. "Has there been no one to guard it?" Then, as though such trifles were unworthy of consideration, he asked eagerly, while a strange light shone from his eyes: "I had a wife, a child, when they took me from here. Are they--they--still alive?" "Is it possible monsieur does not know?" "Know! What should I know? Woman, I tell you I have been dead to the world for forty-five years--buried alive in a place to which no news ever comes. Where," he continued, "where are my wife and child?" "Alas! monsieur," she said, seeming while she spoke as though endeavouring to avoid answering him, "I have heard of you from my father; he was _garde chasse_ at the Château de Chevagny many years ago." "Lenoir! Was he your father?" "Yes, monsieur, but he has been dead these twenty years; and then----" "My wife and child!" he interrupted--"my wife and child! Are they dead, too?" "Alas! monsieur, I never saw Madame la Marquise. She--she--died the year I was born." De Chevagny straightened himself upon the bench--as he did so there came to Bertie's recollection how his own father had so straightened himself as he died in his arms a few years before, and he wondered why he recalled that incident at this moment--then the marquis said: "The year you were born? How old are you?" "Forty-one, monsieur." "Forty-one!" he whispered, "forty-one! So! she lived four years. Four years. And I--I--have been hoping, praying--O God! how I have prayed!--to see her again--to see her again, while for forty-one years she has been lying in her grave--in her grave!" He paused awhile, perhaps because he heard the sobs of Bertie and the woman mingling with his own; then he said: "And the little child--my dear, dear little babe! Is--is she dead, too?" "_Non_, monsieur--at least I think not. She----" "Thank God!" "She married, very young, the Vicomte de Brunet," the woman answered through her tears, "and went with him to Guadeloupe; and sometimes, at intervals, she writes to her friends in Paris, and they send me news of her. Also, she has once written to me." "And she is well? Has she children of her own, perhaps?" "No, monsieur. Her marriage has not been so blessed by the _bon Dieu!_" He sat thinking awhile, meditating deeply ere he spoke again; then he said: "But this house and the château--they were good properties; we have drawn large sums from them for generations. Who takes the rents, the produce, now--to whom do they belong?"