"And why not? Is it to punish you for mischievously letting your dog Phylax into the poultry-yard?" asked Gabriel. "Ah, no, for something very different, believe me!" "Well, what is it, then?" She rose, and as she stood with her arms hanging by her side, and her head cast down, she said,-- "Because I am somebody else's wife." Gabriel did not joke any more, and a vague dread pierced his heart; he replied with a trembling voice,-- "What do you mean by that, Diane?" "I am no longer Diane," was the reply, "but Madame la Duchesse de Castro, since my husband's name is Horace Farnèse, Duc de Castro." And the child could not help smiling a little through her tears as she said it. "My husband" indeed, and she a child of twelve! Oh, it was magnificent: "Madame la Duchesse!" But she speedily became sad again when she saw Gabriel's suffering. The young man was standing before her, pale, and with a frightened look in his eyes. "Is this a joke? Is it a dream?" said he. "No, my poor friend, it is a sad truth," replied Diane. "Didn't you meet Enguerrand on the way? He started for Montgommery half an hour since." "I came by the short cut. But go on and finish your story." "Why is it, Gabriel, that you have been four days without coming here? Such a thing never happened before, and it made us unhappy, don't you see? Night before last I had very hard work to go to sleep. I hadn't seen you for two days, and was very uneasy, and I made Enguerrand promise that if you didn't come the next day we should go to Montgommery the day after that. And then, as if we had had a presentiment, Enguerrand and I fell to talking of the future, and then of the past, and of my relatives, who seemed, alas! to have forgotten me. It is a wretched tale that I have to tell you, and I should have been happier perhaps if they had really forgotten me. All this serious talk had naturally made me a little sad, and had wearied me; and I was, as I said, a long while going to sleep, and that is why I awoke rather later than usual yesterday morning. I dressed myself in a great hurry, told my beads, and was just ready to go downstairs when I heard a great commotion under my window before the house door. There were magnificent cavaliers there, Gabriel, attended by squires, pages, and varlets, and behind the cavalcade was a gilded carriage, quite dazzling in its splendor. As I was looking curiously at this retinue, and marvelling that it should have stopped at our modest dwelling, Antoine came and knocked at my door, and gave me a message from Enguerrand that I should come down at once. I don't know why I was afraid to go, but I had to obey, and I obeyed. When I went into the great hall, it was filled with these superb seigneurs whom I had seen from my window. I then fell to blushing and trembling, more alarmed than ever; you can understand that, Gabriel, can't you?" "Yes," said Gabriel, bitterly. "But go on, for the thing is becoming decidedly interesting."