"I dare say you have," replied Chazeul with a triumphant smile, judging from his cousin's countenance that all things had gone according to his own wishes. "Well, what is the result of your conference?" "Of that hereafter," answered De Montigni, passing on. "Nay, no words at present, good Estoc," he continued; seeing the old soldier eying Chazeul with an angry glance, "let the past be forgotten, if you would not grieve me." "But one warning first to this young gentleman," said Estoc; "Do not use such words again to a French gentleman, Monsieur de Chazeul; for I give you fair notice, that, if I be the one on whom you spend them, I will send my sword through your body, as I have done to many a better man than yourself before now." "You might not find me quite tranquil under such an honour, Master Estoc," replied Chazeul; "but I will take care that you shall be chastised for your insolence, by those whom it may better become to meddle with you:" and thus saying, he followed De Montigni over the bridge and through the passage into the hall. To say the truth, the heart of Louis de Montigni was not quite at ease: for, how long he had been watched from _the cavalier_, and how much of what he had said had been overheard, he could not tell. The small part of the man's head which he had observed, did not enable him to judge who it was that had been playing the eaves-dropper; and he more feared the priest than any one else. But when he entered the hall he found father Walter there, and his uncle absent; and, the moment after, Monsieur de Liancourt himself appeared with an air of so much satisfaction, that De Montigni's apprehensions of discovery were at an end. "Well, Louis," said the Count, "I trust you are satisfied, and that you have made up your mind to yield all this idle resistance, and sign the papers at last with a good grace." "I have promised my reply before noon to-morrow," replied De Montigni with a frown upon his brow; for he was not well pleased with the pitiful art which had been used towards him. "Before I sign anything, however, I must read the papers, and consider them well; it is but fair to know, what I am asked to do." "You are mightily long and deliberate, Monsieur de Montigni," said Chazeul; "I understood that you were to make up your mind by what Mademoiselle d'Albret thought fit to say. Now I will take it upon myself to affirm, that she did ask you to sign them." "You are wrong, Monsieur de Chazeul," replied his cousin, turning upon him sternly, "she did not." "You are too frank and noble, my son, I am sure," observed father Walter, "to have recourse to an evasion; and we have every reason to suppose that, if the young lady did not actually ask you to put your hand to these documents, she did what was tantamount, and expressed some wish that it should be so."