This gentleman chose soon to free the family from his presence, against their advice; even in the face of their strong remonstrances. Like many who are deficient in physical courage and mental strength, he was rash and obstinate. As soon as he had recovered from his astonishment at not being killed on the day of his arrival, he began to be certain that there was no further danger, and, blind to the manifold tokens of his extreme unpopularity, which might have greeted his senses and understanding at any hour of any day, he determined on secretly quitting his disguise, without troubling his kind friends to reason any further with him. One morning, accordingly, his valet’s dress was found on the floor of his chamber, and on his table, a note of ample, though haughty thanks to his preservers; and by noon, the marquis’s old steed, bearing a rider whose skirts, blue eyes, and entire deportment could not be mistaken, was seen to trample new ploughed fields, and give promise of riding over heedless children, as before. The last thing that entered the old man’s head was altering his modes of procedure in any one respect. He could not escort lady Alice, because she was not there; but he paced the terrace, in an afternoon, with his head half turned, as if he saw her ghost beside him. He could not lead a long train of hunters, because some of them were in Austria, some in England, and one or two already laid headless in a bloody grave; but he galloped forth on the same routes, making the most of the two or three servants who followed him still, and returning in state to sit solitary at the head of a long table, and toast his own loyal sentiments. What was worse,—he trampled his poor neighbours when they came in his way, and overlooked them when they did not, as if he had never been branded by a poissarde, or hunted in the avenue at Versailles. All this, it may be supposed, soon came to an end,—and by means which proved the error of the popular belief about the chamber full of gold at the chateau. Out of pure humanity, Charles repeatedly vanquished his resentment at the marquis’s supercilious treatment of him, and offered warnings of the blackening gloom which settled in the faces of the peasantry when the little great man came in sight; but the marquis had got it into his head that Charles had an interest in frightening him. He thought he had been more frightened than most men already, and wisely determined to be so no more. He bowed, laid his hand on his heart, disengaged his rein from the friendly grasp, and passed on. “My hopefulness is nothing to his, Marguerite, after all,” observed Charles. “You say I hope against hope. He hopes against reason. The difference is that the one hope will vanish when most wanted, and the other, I trust, never wear out.”