Looking back when we had ridden a little further, the tower had turned its back on me, and all I saw was the heaps of cut stone, lying naked in the moonlight. That was my last sight of the home of my ancestors. I had kept faith. CHAPTER XII. HERE ends, my dear child, the romance of your old friend's life; if by the word romance we may rightly understand that which, even if not lasting itself, throws a brightness over all that may come after it. I never saw that fair country of France again, and since then I have lived sixty years and more; but what I brought away with me that sorrowful night has sweetened all the years. I had the honour of loving as sweet a lady as ever stepped from heaven to earth; and I had the thought that, if right had permitted, and the world been other than it was, I could have won her. Such feelings as these, my dear, keep a man's heart set on high things, however lowly his lot may be. I came back to my village. My own home was empty, but every house was open to me; and not a man or a woman there but offered me a home for as long as I would take it. My good friend Ham Belfort would have me come to be a son to him, he having no children. But my duty, as he clearly saw when I pointed it out, was to Abby Rock; and Abby and I were not to part for many years. Her health was never the same after my father's death; it was her son I was to be, and I am glad to think she found me a good one. Father L'Homme-Dieu made me kindly welcome, too, and to him and to Abby I could open my heart, and tell them all that had befallen me in these three life-long months. But I found a strange difference in their manner of receiving it; for whereas the Father understood my every feeling, and would nod his head (a kind hand on my shoulder all the while), and say yes, yes, I could not have done otherwise, and thus it was that a gentleman should feel and act,--which was very soothing to me,--Abby, on the other hand, though she must hear the story over and over again, could never gain any patience in the hearing. "What did they want?" she would cry, her good homely face the colour of a red leaf. "An emperor would be the least that could suit them, I'll warrant!" And though she dared not, after the first word, breathe anything against my sweet young lady, she felt no such fear about the old one, and I verily believe that if she had come upon Mme. de Lalange, she would have torn her in pieces, being extraordinary strong in her hands. Hag and witch were the kindest words she could give her; so that at last I felt bound to keep away from the subject, from mere courtesy to the absent. But this, as I have since found by observation, was the mother-nature in Abby, which will fill the mildest woman with desire to kill any one that hurts or grieves her child.