The folding doors had been thrown open: M. le Comte and his son-in-law elect were on the point of entering and had paused for a moment just under the lintel. De Marmont was talking in a loud voice and apparently in response to something which M. le Comte had just told him. "Ah!" he said, "Mme. la Duchesse will be leaving Brestalou? I am sorry to hear that. Why should she go so soon?" "An affair of business, my dear de Marmont," replied the Comte. "I will tell you about it at an early opportunity." After which there was a hubbub of talk in the corridors outside, the sound of greetings, the pleasing confusion of questions and answers which marks the simultaneous arrival of several guests. Crystal rose and turned to Bobby with a smile. "You will have to tell me some other time," she said lightly. "Don't forget!" The psychological moment had gone by and Clyffurde cursed himself for having fought too long against the promptings of his heart and lost the precious moments which might have changed the whole of Crystal's future. He cursed himself for not having spoken sooner, now that he saw de Marmont with glowing eyes and ill-concealed triumph approach his beautiful fiancée and with the air of a conqueror raise her hand to his lips. She looked very pale, and to the man who loved her so ardently and so hopelessly it seemed as if she gave a curious little shiver and that for one brief second her blue eyes flashed a pathetic look of appeal up to his. VI M. le Comte's guests followed closely on the triumphant bridegroom's heels: M. le préfet, fussy and nervous, secretly delighted at the idea of affixing his official signature to such an aristocratic _contrat de mariage_ as was this between Mlle. de Cambray de Brestalou and M. Victor de Marmont, own nephew to Marshal the duc de Raguse; Madame la préfète, resplendent in the latest fashion from Paris, the Duc and Duchesse d'Embrun, cousins of the bride, the Vicomte de Génevois and his mother, who was Abbess of Pont Haut and godmother by proxy to Crystal de Cambray; whilst Général Marchand, in command of the troops of the district, fresh from the Council of War which he had hastily convened, was trying to hide behind a _débonnaire_ manner all the anxiety which "the brigand's" march on Grenoble was causing him. The chief notabilities of the province had assembled to do honour to the occasion, later on others would come, lesser lights by birth and position than this select crowd who would partake of the _souper des fiançailles_ before the _contrat_ was signed in their presence as witnesses to the transaction. Everyone was talking volubly: the ogre's progress through France--no longer to be denied--was the chief subject of conversation. Some spoke of it with contempt, others with terror. The ex-Bonapartists Fourier and Marchand were loudest in their curses against "the usurper."