It took me some time to repair my wardrobe, so that I daresay it was nearly ten when I left my dismal little room. I found Louis waiting in the corridor, and he told me that Madame de Cocheforet and Mademoiselle were in the rose garden, and would be pleased to receive me. I nodded, and he guided me through several dim passages to a parlour with an open door, through which the sun shone gaily on the floor. Cheered by the morning air and this sudden change to pleasantness and life, I stepped lightly out. The two ladies were walking up and down a wide path which bisected the garden. The weeds grew rankly in the gravel underfoot, the rose bushes which bordered the walk thrust their branches here and there in untrained freedom, a dark yew hedge which formed the background bristled with rough shoots and sadly needed trimming. But I did not see any of these things. The grace, the noble air, the distinction of the two women who paced slowly to meet me--and who shared all these qualities, greatly as they differed in others--left me no power to notice trifles. Mademoiselle was a head shorter than her BELLE-SOEUR--a slender woman and petite, with a beautiful face and a fair complexion; a woman wholly womanly. She walked with dignity, but beside Madame’s stately figure she had an air almost childish. And it was characteristic of the two that Mademoiselle as they drew near to me regarded me with sorrowful attention, Madame with a grave smile. I bowed low. They returned the salute. ‘This is my sister,’ Madame de Cocheforet said, with a very slight air of condescension, ‘Will you please to tell me your name, Monsieur?’ ‘I am M. de Barthe, a gentleman of Normandy,’ I said, taking on impulse the name of my mother. My own, by a possibility, might be known. Madame’s face wore a puzzled look. ‘I do not know that name, I think,’ she said thoughtfully. Doubtless she was going over in her mind all the names with which conspiracy had made her familiar. That is my misfortune, Madame,’ I said humbly. ‘Nevertheless I am going to scold you,’ she rejoined, still eyeing me with some keenness. ‘I am glad to see that you are none the worse for your adventure--but others may be. And you should have borne that in mind, sir.’ ‘I do not think that I hurt the man seriously,’ I stammered. ‘I do not refer to that,’ she answered coldly. ‘You know, or should know, that we are in disgrace here; that the Government regards us already with an evil eye, and that a very small thing would lead them to garrison the village, and perhaps oust us from the little the wars have left us. You should have known this, and considered it,’ she continued. ‘Whereas--I do not say that you are a braggart, M. de Barthe. But on this one occasion you seem to have played the part of one.’ ‘Madame, I did not think,’ I stammered.