"I happen to know Luxembourg very well. My brother, strangely enough, is one of the Prince's tenants." "Oh, then, you of course know my future home," exclaimed Liane, suddenly interested. "Yes, very well. The chateau is a fine old place perched high up, overlooking a beautiful fertile valley," her hostess replied. "I once went there a few years ago, when the old Prince was alive, and I well remember being charmed by the romantic quaintness of its interior. Inside, one is back three centuries; with oak panelling, old oak furniture, great old-fashioned fireplaces with cosy corners, and narrow windows, through which long ago archers shed their flights of arrows. There is a dungeon, too; and a dark gloomy prison-chamber in one of the round turrets. It is altogether a most delightful old place." "Gloomy, I suppose?" observed Liane thoughtfully. "Well, life amid such old-world surroundings as those could scarcely be quite as bright or enjoyable as Nice or Paris, but it is nevertheless a magnificent and well-preserved relic of a bygone age. Without doubt it is one of the finest of feudal chateaux in Europe." "Are any of the rooms modern?" "None," Madame replied. "It seems to have been the hobby of the Princes d'Auzac to preserve intact its ancient character. You will be envied as the possessor of such a fine old place. I shall be delighted to come and see you when you are settled--if I may." "Certainly. I, too, shall be delighted," Liane answered mechanically. "In a place like that one will require a constant supply of visitors to make life at all endurable. It is, I fear, one of those grey, forbidding-looking old places as full of rats as it is of traditions." "I don't know about the rats," her hostess answered, laughing heartily. "But there are, I know, many quaint and curious legends connected with the place. My brother told me some." "What were they about?" "Oh, about the tyranny of the d'Auzacs who, in the middle ages, ravaged the Eiffel and the Moselle valley, and more than once attacked the town of Treves itself. In those days the name of d'Auzac was synonymous of all that was cruel and brutal; but the family have become civilised since then, and," she added, looking towards Zertho, who was laughing with her two daughters, "the Prince scarcely looks a person to be feared." "No," observed Liane, with a forced smile. To her also the name of d'Auzac was synonymous of cunning, brutality, and unscrupulousness. She pictured to herself the great mountain stronghold, a grim, grey relic of an age of barbarism, the lonely dreary place peopled by ghosts of an historic past, that was to be her home, in which she was to live with this man who held her enthralled. Then she shuddered.