The Marchioness mused. "How comes it, good father," she asked, "that Chazeul has not made himself loved? I fear he has been playing the fool with other women; for he is not reputed to want success upon a lady's heart, when he is inclined to try. I must give him some lessons; do you think that any of his love affairs have come to this girl's ears? That should be prevented till the marriage takes place." "By all means," said the priest, "but I know of none from which there is any danger." "And I of but one," rejoined the Marchioness, "but I will take care to keep that from her. One may be justified in using a little violence for such an object." "Assuredly," answered father Walter, "anything in short, but the spilling of blood." "Oh, Heaven forbid!" cried the Marchioness, "I bear the woman no ill will for loving Chazeul; but if I were to have her carried off and shut closely up for a few days, there could be no harm in that." "It were the best means," replied father Walter, "unless her family be sufficiently powerful to make dangerous resistance." "There is no fear of that," answered Madame de Chazeul, with a quiet smile; "but I will go and see Mademoiselle d'Albret." Thus saying she quitted the hall, while father Walter advanced towards the group of gentlemen at the other end, who had been conversing together calmly enough during his interview with the Marchioness. That lady, however, returned after a very brief absence, saying that Rose d'Albret was trying to sleep; and, put upon a wrong track as she was, both by her brother and the priest, she attached herself during the rest of the morning to De Montigni, endeavouring by every artful means, to possess herself of his whole views and intentions, and at the same time to convince him, that he was giving pain to Rose d'Albret by his hesitation in regard to the signature of the papers. One of the reasons why the game of life is not unfrequently won by the simple and the honest against all the arts of the politic and the wily, is perhaps that, in this game, as in no other, the most skilful and calculating can never tell what cards may be in the hands of the adverse party. I say one of the reasons; for there are many, and amongst them is the belief, from which cunning people can never free themselves, that others are dealing with them in the same way that they would deal, if their relative situations were reversed.