Always courteous and gentle in demeanour, the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII. of France, applied himself to put his entertainers at their ease. He took Blanche's hand and kissed it, saying, "Your noble husband, dear lady, tells me you expect here to-night your cousin and mine, Lorenzo Visconti. If he come, I shall call it a lucky storm that drove me for shelter to your house, as I have much to say to him; but I fear he cannot reach Vitry to-day. The sun is well-nigh down, and the waters of the river seem as high as ever." "The storm, too, seems going directly along his road," said De Vitry, "and if it reached him where I think he must have first felt it, he will know that he cannot cross the bridge tonight, and find shelter amongst the peasants' cottages out beyond the hills there. But I trust your highness will stay over to-morrow, as you wish to see him. He is certain to be here, I think, early in the morning." "I must be away before noon," said the duke, "and in case he should not arrive before I go, you must tell him from me, De Vitry, that I have the king's permission to call any noble gentleman to my aid who is willing to draw the sword for the recovery of my heritage of Milan. Now I think a Visconti would rather see a child of a Visconti in the ducal chair of Milan than any other. Thus I fully count upon his aid toward the end of autumn, with all the men that we can raise. So tell him from me, De Vitry." "You may count surely, my lord the duke, upon Lorenzo's going to any place where there is a chance of his losing his life," said De Vitry. "He is in a curious mood just now." "I have remarked it," replied the duke. "He used to be gentle, courteous, gay, bright, and brave as his sword, but when last I saw him he had grown stern and somewhat haughty, careless of courtesies, and curt and sharp of speech. They said that some disappointment weighed upon his mind." "The most bitter, your highness, that can press down the heart of man or woman," answered Blanche Marie; "no less than the faithlessness of one he loved. She is my cousin, yet I cannot but blame her for breaking so noble a heart. They parted with the fondest hopes. She promised to wait his coming in Florence, where they were to be united immediately. When he arrived there she was gone, without leaving letter or message, or announcement of any kind. He could not follow her to Rome, from the state of the country; and though he wrote, and took every means to make her know where he was, his letters remained unanswered, or were sent back. He might have doubted some foul play; but a few words in her own hand, written carelessly on a scrap of paper, in a packet returned to him, showed too well that she was cognizant of all that had been done; and the last news was that she was married, or to be married to another."