"Let him think so," said she, trying to smile as she shook a finger at him. "To me it seems a sin to make a child sorrowful. Come and say good-bye to Monsieur Gaspard, Gaston." It was strange, almost grotesque, certainly pathetic, how the child in him froze to the dignity of the Count of Foix. "Goodbye, Monsieur," said he, coming forward sedately, but with a back-turned glance of regret at Roland whinnying after him. "My father, the Count de Narbonne, will be sorry--oh, you have a new kind of spurs on, Monsieur Gaspard! Suzanne! do you see? Is that because you have so far to ride." "Goodbye, Monsieur Gaston," said I, smiling in spite of my heavy heart at his struggle to be two such incongruities at the one minute as a dignified prince and a wholesome-natured child of six. "When next we ride together we must have just such another famous gallop as we had on Saturday." "Shall we? Shall we?" he cried, gleefully clapping his hands, the prince all flung to the wind. "Oh, but it was grand, that ride from La Voulle! Suzanne, you would have thought the King of France was after us, we rode so fast." But Mademoiselle had me by the hand, and was biting her lip, so that I said my farewells hastily. "God bless you, Mademoiselle! Only He knows what you have been to me in my weakness," and stooping, I kissed her hand as I had kissed it once before. "It is not so very hard; never believe that it has been very hard. Father Paul----" But Father Paul was fairly crying, and when I saw the tears running unrestrained down his cheeks, I judged it time to be in the saddle, lest I should disgrace my manhood. To weep at a friend's grave is no shame, but a man who rides in his own funeral should keep back his tears that others may not suffer with him. What benediction was in Father Paul's heart I do not know, for his tongue turned traitor and would not speak, but I have no doubt that He to Whom it was addressed heard and recorded it. Almost in silence I left the great door of Morsigny, but not the outer gate. There waited Hugues, 'Tuco, Antony, and the rest, all who had so rightly mistrusted me. They were in two lines, between which we rode bareheaded as they. At first they were dumb, and stood to arms as soldiers stand when a fellow soldier goes where a soldier may look to go in the fulfilment of his duty. But as we passed beneath the teeth of the portcullis a roar followed us, a cheer, a hoarse shout like the rumble of thunder, "Vive Hellewyl! Vive Solignac! Vive Flanders!" At the shout I turned in the saddle, my heart beating fast, my eyes wet, and the last I saw of Morsigny was not Mademoiselle's white face, nor Brother Paul's tears, but a forest of bare steel shaken in the air, and quivering like fire as the sun caught the flat of the friendly blades. Truly it was something of a triumph that Navarre should cheer a man of Flanders who came by way of Plessis-les-Tours!