About this time, I being nineteen years of age, things happened that entirely altered my life. My mother sickened and died. Shortly after news came of the death of my brother St. Martin, who was killed in an affair of honour at Milan. The Vidame, my father, then in his eighty-first year, and much enfeebled by old wounds, especially one he had received at Fornovo, felt that his last hours were come, and summoned my brother Simon and myself home to receive his last blessing before he died. I hurried back as fast as possible, but when I reached Orrain I found to my astonishment the gates of the Chateau closed against me, and Simon, leaning over the battlements, bade me begone. Overcome with this reception, I was for a space struck speechless; but at length finding voice I begged, even with tears, to be allowed to see my father. But Simon sneered back: "You will have to take a long journey, then; either below or above--I know not which," he mocked. "Your father is dead. He has left you his curse, and the lands of St. Martin are yours. I am master here at last, thank God! And I tell you to be off! Take that pink and white face of yours back to your College of Cambrai!" He lied, for, as I afterwards heard, my father was not dead then, but lay dying in his chamber, to which no one but Simon had access, and over which he had placed a guard of his men-at-arms, a cut-throat set of Italians whom he ever had with him. Simon's cruel words stung me to the quick. My blood flamed with rage, and I dared him to come forth and meet me as a man; but he only laughed all the more, and, pointing to the tree of justice outside the gate, asked how I would like to swing from one of its branches. He added that, as I was his step-brother, he would give me a high one, if I chose. I can almost see him now as I write this, with his cruel hatchet face snarling over the parapet, his red hair, his tall, thin figure and bent back--if the truth were known, Simon's affairs of gallantry must have been few. In brief, despite all my efforts, I was unable to see my father, who died that night asking for me. In the hamlet of Orrain itself I could find no shelter, although the villagers knew and loved me, and this was from fear of the new Vidame. I, however, found a temporary retreat in the forest, living there like a wild beast for four days, waiting with a burning heart for a chance of meeting Simon, but he never came forth. On the fourth day my father was buried at dead of night in the Chapel of St. Hugo of Orrain, where every Vidame of Orrain, save one, lies.