But when the young nobleman had done all, the good commander's smothered fire broke forth in a blaze, "Curses upon them forever!" he exclaimed; "now they wonder there are Huguenots, and yet to see a Catholic priest playing knave and hypocrite in this way is enough to make any honest man turn Turk! I am ashamed of my brother, Louis, I am ashamed of my family, but I am still more ashamed of my religion. It's not honest, my boy! It's not honest, if it suffers its clergy to go playing such a double game, telling what suits them, and keeping back what does not suit them to speak. Now you shall hear the plain truth. You are heir of Liancourt, pure and undoubted. It was settled so long since, and nothing but your own act can deprive you of the lands." "I suspected that such was the case," replied the young nobleman, "as soon as I saw such anxiety to induce me to sign papers in haste, and without explanation." "Suspected!" cried the old commander. "Why you should have known it long ago, if there had been honest men amongst us. I made my renunciation in poor Louise's favour--my sister--your mother, boy--when she married your good father--God rest his soul--and I took the Order of St. John. You are the heir, then, beyond all doubt; but Jacqueline, your aunt, my sister--she's a devil if ever one was--has never ceased working at my poor weak brother Anthony to deprive you of your right." "She never loved me, I know," replied De Montigni. "I remember when I was a mere boy--" "Loved you! that's not the point," exclaimed the commander. "She loves you just as well as anything else that stands in her way. It is that she loves herself, and loves herself in her son--the coxcomb! She has set her mind upon seeing him wealthy and powerful. She always looked upon money as the best of blessings. That is why she married old Chazeul, a man she hated and despised, only that she might be richer than her elder sister; and now this fellow has squandered half his father's estate, she thinks to patch up a greater fortune still by getting for him Marennes and Liancourt. The last she never can get if you are not a fool, Louis, and the first she cannot get without she gets the last." "This seems to me a riddle, Sir," said De Montigni, thoughtfully. "I understand that this marriage is fully settled, with the consent and approbation of all parties; and surely the hand of Mademoiselle d'Albret, with her hereditary property, must be an object well worth striving for, even in the eyes of one who values wealth so much as my aunt De Chazeul."