"Goodness!" the Count said, in surprise; "and yet I do not know you, as far as I am aware, La Grenade--whence, may I ask, comes this great devotion to my person?" "I am most willing to tell you, sir, if it interests you. I am a friend of M. François Bouillot, to whom I am under certain obligations; he ordered me to serve and obey you in everything." "That good Bouillot," said the Count. "Very well, my friend, I shall not be ungrateful. I do not want you anymore at present." The gaoler put some logs on the fire, lit the lamp, and withdrew. "Well," said the Count, with a laugh, "Heaven forgive me! I believe that, though a prisoner in appearance, I am as much master of this castle as the governor, and that I can leave it without opposition on any day I like. What would the Cardinal think if he knew how his orders were executed?" He sat down to table, unfolded his napkin, and began dining with a good appetite. Things went on thus, in the way agreed on between the Governor and his prisoner. The arrival of Count de Barmont at the fortress had been a windfall for the Major, who, since he had received from the royal munificence the command of this castle as retiring pension, had not once before had an opportunity to derive any profit from the position that had been given him. Hence he promised to make a gold mine of his solitary prisoner; for the Isle of St. Marguerite, as we have already remarked, had not yet acquired the reputation which it merited at a later date as a State prison. The Count's room was furnished as well as it could be; everything he demanded in the shape of books was procured him, though he had to pay dearly for them, and he was even allowed to walk on the towers. The Count was happy--so far, at least, as the circumstances in which he found himself allowed him to be so: no one would have supposed, on seeing him work so assiduously at mathematics and navigation, for he applied himself most seriously to the completion of his maritime education, that this man nourished in his heart a thought of implacable vengeance, and that this thought was ever present to him. At the first blush, the resolution formed by the Count to allow himself to be incarcerated, while it was easy for him to remain free, may seem strange: but the Count was one of those men of granite whose thoughts are immutable, and who, when they have once formed a resolution, after calculating with the utmost coolness all the chances for and against, follow the road they have laid down for themselves, ever marching in a straight line without caring for the obstacles that arise at each step on their path and surmounting them, because they decided from the first that they would do so--characters that grow and are perfected in the struggle, and sooner or later reach the goal they have designed.