Francezka grew a little pale at these words, but rallied after a moment, speaking courteously.

“Such is your Grace’s opinion. But you can not expect Gaston Cheverny’s wife to be the first to give up hoping for him.”

“By no means. But—Madame Cheverny—you are a widow—and you should conduct yourself as such. You should put on mourning, and place the affairs of your husband before the courts, that they may be settled. In short—pardon the form in which I put it—but you are a widow and should conduct yourself as such.”

“In that case, I should be at liberty to marry again,” coolly remarked Francezka. “Would your Grace recommend me to that?”

The bishop fairly jumped from his chair.

“Great God! No, Madame! It would give frightful scandal!”

“But, Monseigneur, you say that I am a widow—that I should wear mourning. At least be consistent.”

The bishop, swelling with wrath, rose and walked twice, thrice up and down the room. I fancied he was saying in his mind—Was there ever so vexatious a creature as this Francezka? She never had any proper respect for authority! And there sat that easy young brother of his, smiling at his discomfiture—the discomfiture of a bishop!

Francezka remained silent for a little while, and when she spoke it was with seriousness.

She rose and her face and eyes were flooded with color and light, as she stood facing the bishop.

“Do not again speak to me of putting on mourning. When I do that, then indeed is life over for me—all hope, all joy, forever dead. And do you suppose I care that idle people wonder at me? I am too busy to care for anything but my husband’s return; I have my estates to manage—a heavy task for a woman. And I am determined that if my husband returns, he shall find not only a great estate to his hand, but an accomplished wife to his mind. Look at this proof of my study and endeavor!”

She threw open the door which communicated with the little yellow room, where she spent most of her time. The walls were lined with books, and there were several musical instruments in the room.

The flood of her vehemence arrested the bishop’s impatient walk. Father Benart sighed a little, as any one might, at this poor, human heart of Francezka’s, laid bare, and beating desperately against the fate that seemed closing around her. Neither one of them spoke immediately, nor did I. No one of us present knew how to answer Francezka. After a considerable pause, the bishop said, not unkindly:

“I perceive my counsel has been in vain. I must depart.”

Francezka, then, mindful of her duties as chatelaine, pressed him to remain, or at least to take some refreshment before leaving. To the last he agreed.

Peter, in response to a ring of the bell, brought a tray, with wine and glasses. At the first sip of wine, the bishop’s countenance cleared. He was a judge of wines and that in his glass was worthy even of the Bishop of Louvain.

“This is admirable—the best of the Mosel vineyards,” he said.

“Yes,” sweetly replied Francezka. “I stocked the cellar last year with good wine at a reasonable price—” which she named.

I made no remark about the bishop’s visit, but I saw that it was not without its effect on Francezka, in spite of her spirited protest to his Grace. She was more silent all of that day than I had yet seen her, and there was a heart-breaking look in her eyes that went to my heart, and also to the heart of the dog, Bold; for, seeing her pensive, he rose from his place at her feet, and laid his head, with a little whine of sympathy, upon her lap. For once, Francezka forgot to notice him. Her eyes were fixed on something afar which yet she saw not, and I heard her murmur:

“Oh, my tired heart!”

The bishop calling up his sternest accents said:

“I know what your sin has been—are you truly penitent for it?”

Lisa made a faint sound, indicating her penitence.

“And are you willing to do penance for it?”

Lisa inclined her head, and trembled.

“Your sin has been very great. Your behavior no doubt was light, such as to encourage Jacques Haret or any other evil man.”

Lisa raised her eyes to the bishop’s face, and said gently:

“Sir, I can not say that. However wicked I was, at least I was not wicked in that way.”

“But you must have been,” replied the bishop, with the calm confidence of ignorance. “And the misery you endured while persisting in your sinful courses, was God’s punishment.”

“But, sir,” said Lisa, still calmly, “I was not miserable then. I was the happiest of God’s creatures.”

“Impossible!” cried the bishop, starting from his chair, as he had done the day before, in the interview with that other obstinate woman, Francezka Cheverny.

Lisa did not contradict the bishop, but the bishop saw that his denial of the fact had not really affected that fact.

“Do you mean to tell me,” thundered the bishop, “that you were happy in the society of your partner in guilt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But at least you are not happy now?”

“No, sir.”

“And why?”

“Because,” replied poor Lisa, with the utmost simplicity, “I can never see Monsieur Jacques Haret again.”

“You may go.”

Lisa turned and walked rapidly away.

Soon after that I passed through the village, and noticed the bishop’s coach in front of the priest’s modest house. The two brothers were coming out of the door. Father Benart was saying:

“There are many inexplicable things in a country parish, my brother. It is not in my power to make Lisa Embden, or any other creature, feel happiness in the pursuit of good. If I can keep them a little out of the path of evil, it is all I can hope for.”

“I am of the belief,” cried the bishop, “that one self-willed and unruly woman like Peggy Kirkpatrick can put insubordination into the head of a young woman, like Francezka Cheverny—Francezka, in her turn, can implant it in her dependents. There seems to be a general lack of discipline among the women in your parish, brother.”

“True,” replied Father Benart, “and I take it that Madame Riano is to blame for Lisa Embden’s lapse from virtue.”

But a few days more remained of our stay. It passed quietly, in sweet and gentle converse, and with books and music. The change continued in Francezka after the bishop’s visit. He was a man of little weight, and she had frankly treated him as such, but his belief that Gaston Cheverny was no more, which she had treated with scorn, had yet left its impress on her; perhaps because people of more sense than the bishop had been more guarded and tender with her. But when we bade her good by, she said to us:

“Remember, Count Saxe and Babache, if you are my friends, you will never forget to make inquiry of each and every person you meet, from whom it would be possible to hear of my husband. For myself, once, every day, shall I go to the spot in the Italian garden which overlooks the highroad, to watch for my heart’s desire—and if he never returns—”

She paused and her eyes filled, and she quoted from some book she had lately been reading:

“Man is based on hope; he has, properly, no other possession but hope; this habitation of his is named the place of hope.”

Her eyes, as she said this, grew dark with melancholy, but there was still an undying courage shining in them. Poor, poor Francezka!

We went on to Brussels; but though my body was in Brussels, my soul was still at the château of Capello. I had not the slightest doubt in my own mind that Gaston Cheverny was dead, and the spectacle of this poor Francezka, with her passionate faithfulness, unable to part with that lingering ghost of hope, was enough to touch any heart. It deeply touched Count Saxe’s. He was the last man on earth to forget that through devotion to him Gaston Cheverny had been lost, and I believe he would have given his right arm could Gaston Cheverny have been found.

By the time we got to Brussels, the women in Paris had found out where Count Saxe was, and a bushel of love letters awaited him—which spoiled that place for us. We went as far as Dresden, and going to Strasburg, returned to Paris by that road, without passing near Brabant. In fact, two whole years passed without my seeing Francezka; and when I saw her—but no more—

There had been some hints of this, and Count Saxe had told me privately that he would not accept any gift from the king, unless coupled with the promise of the marshalship in the event of a successful campaign. I can say of my own knowledge that Count Saxe would rather be Marshal of France than to own Chambord, with Versailles and the Louvre thrown in as makeweights.

Among the waiting crowd was Monsieur Voltaire. I had seen him several times in the preceding two years. He always greeted me civilly—a tribute I think to the poor lost Adrienne, whom none who knew her could forget. On this day, however, Voltaire eyed me somewhat superciliously, and I protest I relished it by contrast with the smirks and bows and smiles and honeyed words lavished upon me by others in hopes of an invitation to Chambord.

My master remained with the king a full half hour. When he came out, he was accompanied, as when he went in, by the old marshal, Duc de Noailles. As soon as I saw Count Saxe’s face, I knew that something more and better had befallen him than a life interest in a great estate. His eyes, the brightest and clearest in the world, sought me out, and by a look, he brought me to his side, the people making way readily enough—real princes cheerfully taking the wall for this Tatar prince born in the Marais! When I got quite close to my master, he whispered in my ear:

“Marshal of France, if successful!”

I felt myself grow hot with joy. Marshal of France! How much greater was that than a huge pile of stone like Chambord!

The Duc de Noailles was then giving out the news, and, turning to my master, the white-haired marshal embraced him as a brother in arms. But I had been the first one told by my master.

The ladies and gentlemen all showed great joy and complaisance. They knew that Count Saxe was not the man to do things by halves, and that at Chambord the gay days of Francis the First and the escadrons volants would be gloriously renewed. I watched Monsieur Voltaire, as with his wonderful and unforgettable eyes he gazed upon Count Saxe and probably reflected on the difference of the reward given a successful general and a great wit—for I am not denying that Monsieur Voltaire possessed a very considerable share of wit. He was among the last to congratulate my master, but he did it finally, winding up a fine compliment with this:

“And now, Monsieur, I presume you will be elected to the seat in the Academy. You shall have my vote. You can always spell victory—and what matters the rest?”

This was the meanest allusion possible to my master’s never having time or inclination to devote to such common things as spelling. But Count Saxe came back at him thus:

“Oh, no, Monsieur Voltaire. I am not a candidate for a seat in the Academy. I am pledged to support a friend of mine for the vacancy.”

All the people pricked up their ears and Monsieur Voltaire was the most eager of them all.

Monsieur Voltaire was a picture. The people present shouted with laughter—Monsieur Voltaire never was very popular at court—and my master grinned, and I felt myself grow weak in the knees with all those laughing eyes fixed on me. It was said afterward, that some of the Academicians were sore over this joke of Count Saxe’s. I had my turn at Monsieur Voltaire shortly after, for having occasion to write him a note in my master’s name, I directed it in full to “Monsieur François Marie Voltaire, Member of the French Academy”—which he was not until some time afterward—“at the house of Madame du Châtelet, on the Isle of St. Louis, Paris.” “Voltaire, Paris,” would have taken any letter straight to him, but I chose to assume that very explicit directions were necessary to reach him, as if he were quite unknown, and difficult to find. It made him very angry, so I heard, and that was what I meant it for.

With the internal management of the castle I had nothing to do. Beauvais was promoted to be maître d’hôtel, and a hard enough time he had, losing, in one year, a very good head of hair over it. The only authority I was made to assume was over the pages of honor. There were ten of these brats, all dressed in yellow silk breeches and waistcoats, and black velvet coats, and they gave me more trouble, grief and perplexity than my whole battalion of Uhlans. Will it be believed that these little rascals in yellow silk, of whom the eldest was barely fourteen, kept me perpetually in anxiety about fighting duels among themselves?

Let it not be supposed that all these labors and perplexities put Francezka out of my mind for one hour. Nor had Count Saxe forgotten her. He caused me to write to her more than once, and delicately intimated a desire that she would honor Chambord at some time with her presence. I little thought when I wrote that letter that Francezka would be likely to see Chambord. But events were moving silently but swiftly, and when I least expected it—when Francezka’s sad fate seemed fixed; when her life had apparently adjusted itself finally, a great, a stupendous change was at hand. It came suddenly but quietly, and the news of it met us at the last place and from the last person one might possibly expect. It was May, when being overtaken by sunset on the way to Paris, and the horses being tired, Count Saxe and myself stopped at a little roadside inn, just one stage from Paris. Count Saxe had not even a servant with him, thinking to spend only a few hours in Paris and then to return at once to Chambord.

On this evening she seemed to hover near me, and it was not the Francezka I had last seen, the bravely patient, the undyingly courageous; but the Francezka of her first wild, sweet youth, high-hearted, all fire and dew, laughter and tears, haughty and merry—the Francezka who claimed happiness as her right. And with this presence near me, and her voice ringing in my ears, I was suddenly brought back to this earth by seeing before me the unwelcome face of Jacques Haret.

I had not seen the scoundrel for four years, and never wished to see him again. He was sitting at a table in the garden of the inn—for I had unconsciously wandered from the orchard into the garden. He looked more prosperous than I had ever seen him, being well dressed all over, and for the first time evidently in clothes made for him. I was for passing on with a brief word, when he stopped me.

“Have you heard the great news?” he asked. “No, of course you have not. Gaston Cheverny has been found. I compute that he reached the château of Capello this afternoon—probably at this very hour.”

The earth began to rock under my feet, the heavens broke into long waves of light, as if the oceans and a million voices were shouting in my ear at once. In the midst of all this, Jacques Haret’s cool, musical voice continued:

While Jacques Haret was speaking, I recovered my composure, although my soul was in storm and tumult, but I could not ask one of the thousand questions burning upon my lips. Then I saw a figure approaching, hatless and unpowdered, and wrapped in a bed coverlet. It was Count Saxe. He had not gone to sleep, and hearing through his open window Jacques Haret’s tale, had sprung from his bed and rushed into the garden. Next to Francezka, Count Saxe, of all the world, wished Gaston Cheverny to be found for reasons easily understood. He called out as he stalked forward in his bed coverlet:

“Do you know anything else about it?”

“Nothing,” replied Jacques, thrusting his hands in his pockets; “but it has ruined Bellegarde’s chances of living at Capello, the palace of delights.”

“And some one else has come back to Capello,” I added. “Lisa, Peter Embden’s niece.”

“Jacques Haret, you are the blackest villain, cheat, scoundrel, rogue and rapscallion yet unhung. The jail yawns for you, the gallows yearns for you. May they both get you!”

“Thanks, Monsieur,” replied Jacques Haret; “I am as God made me—and He makes men different. As Monsieur Voltaire said of your Excellency, ‘God has not seen fit to give wings to the donkey.’ God has not seen fit to make me like the founder of La Trappe. That is all.”

Count Saxe turned to me:

“Get post-horses, Babache. We must go to Paris this night; no doubt there are letters for us. This news, if it be true, is worth a hundred thousand crowns to me.”

The innkeeper got horses for us, and we started for Paris in a ramshackle chaise. Jacques Haret watched our departure with the greatest interest and entirely at his ease.

When I was stepping into the chaise, I called out to him, as he stood on the grass, in the shadowy light:

“I have not time now to give you a good beating, Jacques Haret. But when next we meet, I promise it to you, and will let nothing interfere with my engagement.”

“Thanks,” replied Jacques, “I have been promised not less than a million of beatings and have not yet got the first one. Adieu.”

Count Saxe, lying back in his corner of the chaise, talked of Gaston, of his manliness, his courage, his charm; and of Francezka, whom he could not praise enough. I saw that a cloud had passed from his life with Gaston’s return. He told me that Francezka’s face haunted him, and the absence of any reproach on her part for the imprudence which led to Gaston’s capture went like a poniard to his heart. We reached the Luxembourg before midnight, and were abroad by daylight. I, myself, went to the café of the Green Basket, where news was to be gathered, and found that wild rumors were afloat concerning Gaston Cheverny’s return. Within the next two days we got positive confirmation of it, and, also, a letter from Francezka. It was written in a trembling hand, unlike her usual firm, clear writing. It ran thus:

Count Saxe and dear, faithful Babache:

My best beloved has returned to me. Come and rejoice with me.

Francezka Cheverny.

It took Count Saxe not an hour to fix a day for our departure for Capello, and I wrote a letter telling Francezka when we should arrive; and trying to tell her how deep was my joy in her joy.

Within a week we rode for Brabant—only myself and Beauvais with Count Saxe—and traveled leisurely in the pleasant spring weather.

What Jacques Haret had told concerning the poor Count Bellegarde was true. He, the most absurd creature alive, who had believed for years that this glorious creature was his for the asking, had come to the château of Capello that May afternoon, and had made Francezka a formal offer of marriage. It had been easy enough to dispose of the poor gentleman. Francezka’s temper was naturally warm. In this case, her heart eating itself with despair, her nerves racked with hope deferred, she had turned like a lioness upon the unfortunate Bellegarde. He had fled from her indignant presence, and from the wrath which shone in her eyes and blazed in her cheeks; and Francezka, trembling and tempest-tossed, had, in her turn, fled to the Italian garden, where she could be alone. For she needed to be alone to face the specter which now took shape before her. It was no less than her dead hopes, clad in their grave clothes, which told her that Gaston Cheverny was no more. And while she walked slowly up and down the path, with this horror walking beside her, she looked up, and, behold! There stood Gaston Cheverny in the flesh.

“We can never again be apart beyond the touch of each other’s hand.”

And after an hour spent in paradise, Francezka and Gaston walked hand in hand to the château, the servants and dependents were summoned, and Francezka, kneeling among them, with her hand on Gaston’s shoulder, humbly gave thanks to God for having restored her best beloved to her. The news spread like wildfire, and roused the entire country. The next day, when Francezka and Gaston publicly gave thanks in the church, half the province was present.

Being bred to the trade of a soldier, he knew no other means of livelihood and he found it hard, in his wanderings, to keep body and soul together. He was alone in a far country, unacquainted with the languages, and further borne down by those physical and mental ailments which only mended in the course of long years. Only two things remained ever clear and unclouded with him: one was, the remembrance of Francezka; the other was, a fixed determination to return to Europe. By degrees, his mind recovered its poise and his body its health; but seven years were consumed from the time he was snatched away from his country, from his love, his health, his understanding, until he was again restored to them.

Some of this we heard before we left Paris. Of course, the women would not let Count Saxe depart in peace. The Countess Vielinski followed us with post-horses as far as Mézieres, and Count Saxe only saved himself by decamping in the night, galloping out of one gate of the town, as Madame Vielinski’s berlin rolled into the other. And yet this man is called a gay Lothario!

It was night when we reached the château of Capello. Afar off, we could see the windows blazing with lights and hear the heavenly thrilling of music. The villagers were dancing by moonlight on the village green, to the music of pipes; we heard that every night since Gaston Cheverny’s return, there had been dancing and music everywhere on the estates of Capello, as well as at the château.

When we dismounted before the great entrance, we could see that the château was full of company, and a ball was going on in the Diana gallery. Old Peter received us, and fairly burst into tears of joy when we greeted him. An army of servants were in splendid new liveries; there seemed to be no limit to waxlights, and everything was in gala.

“My dear, dear Babache—my faithful friend—”

Then she turned to Gaston, who embraced me warmly.

“Francezka has told me all, Babache,” he cried. “How can I thank you enough!”

In that brief moment I noticed that Gaston had changed much, as one might expect in those seven years of exile and misery, but not for the worse. On the contrary, I thought him a comelier man than he had ever been before. And strange, for a man who had spent seven years of hardship and labor among a half-civilized people, he bore no trace whatever of awkwardness or boorishness amid his splendid surroundings. He might just have stepped from the œil-de-bœuf at the king’s levee at Versailles, he was so graceful and so much at ease, but he had ever been remarkable for that.

Bellegarde was not there. Francezka, somewhat unreasonably, I think, haughtily refused to see or to speak with him, and sent him a message to the effect that his life would be spared, for which he should be thankful. She was very bitter against him, but the rest of the world, including Gaston Cheverny, took a more lenient view of poor Bellegarde’s offense, and he was laughed at rather than condemned. Nor was the Bishop of Louvain present. I fancy he was afraid to face Madame Riano, after having persistently declared his conviction that Gaston Cheverny would never be again heard of, and having pooh-poohed Madame Riano’s signs, dreams and presentiments that Gaston would return.

I have said before, that although declared a prince, a Tatar prince, I have a most unprince-like habit of retiring to the wall when in fine company, and this I did in the red saloon. I could not take my eyes from Francezka. It seemed to me as if no change could come over her that did not increase her hold upon hearts. Certainly I had never at any time seen her look so beautiful or so winning as in this, her day of triumph. She disarmed envy by a silent appeal for forgiveness that she was so much happier than most of the children of men.

The supper was very grand; the old Marquis Capello’s wine flowed like water; there was a servant in livery behind every other chair; the table was loaded with delicacies; and musicians played soft music from the gallery, the guests joining in the singing. Many old songs were sung, like the ancient Carillon du Verre, and some new ones—especially one, a song of hope, beginning, Espère! Espère, il reviendra! which particularly applied to Francezka and Gaston. I saw the eyes of Francezka and Gaston meet when this strain was sweetly played; they sat, after the French custom, opposite each other in the middle of the long table. Francezka’s eyes were those of an angel, and Gaston’s were so full of pride, of love, of triumph, that they shone like stars.

“Babache, my prince, what is the name of the song Monsieur Cheverny used to sing to us on the terrace of the island in the lake?”

“It was Blondel’s song, Monsieur,” I answered.

Francezka, with a glowing face and dewy eyes, looked at Gaston, but he looked puzzled and a little embarrassed.

“I can not recall it,” he said; “it has gone from me with the memory of other things I would remember.”

Francezka, to assist his struggling memory, softly repeated the first two lines:

It would seem as if he could not but remember how they had often sung and played it together in their golden youth, and the secret, tender meaning they had affixed to it, known only to themselves. And Francezka, in her unhappy time, had often played that air upon the harpsichord as recalling her lost love. But Gaston only shook his head.

“It is gone from me with other things—the sweetest recollections—the sacredest memories—never to return.”

Gaston raised his right hand, brown and sinewy.

“This hand looks to be the same it was when I gave it you,” he said, smiling back sadly at Francezka, “but, like my memory, it is not what it once was. I can neither play the guitar nor write, nor do anything with it as I once did.”

It was sad to see so young a man in the full vigor of manhood with these cruel marks of mental and physical suffering left upon him, but on the whole, few men living could at that moment reckon themselves happier than Gaston Cheverny. If he had suffered he had certainly come into a royal recompense.

We sat late, and afterward there was dancing in the Diana gallery. Francezka walked the minuet with Count Saxe, and afterward danced in a very merry branle. She had danced since Gaston’s return, for the first time in eight years, she told me, having no heart to dance in that first year, when she was secretly Gaston Cheverny’s wife, because he was away at the wars, and having never seen dancing in those seven years of sorrow when she waited and longed for him. But she had not lost either her grace or her gaiety, and danced as she had done in her first girlhood. Madame Riano did some strange Scotch dances with great agility in spite of her sixty years, and rated everybody soundly who could not do the Scotch dances and did not know the Scotch airs.

A great bright moon rode in the heavens, making the landscape all black and silver. The yews and box trees were as dark as the darkest night, and the lake lay in its ever-present gloom shadowed by its sad cypresses and cedars, with but a shimmering of light in its center. In the deep silence its faintly mournful sound was softly heard. Francezka was happy, that was plain. All else mattered little—even a strange and hateful feeling within my own breast—I no longer loved Gaston Cheverny.

Next morning the château was awake early, and then began, in the sweet May weather, a round of festivities which lasted every day of our stay at Capello. Fêtes in the fields, in the May days; masquerades by night, with water parties on the canal, where hidden music played; and always winding up with a ball in the Diana gallery,—these were our regular occupations. In all of these pastimes Francezka shone as queen. In beauty, gaiety, grace and wit, she was unmatched. Her enjoyment and zest of pleasure were contagious. It was natural that it should be so. Francezka’s life had been so clouded and so stormy, for seven years she had borne so heavy a burden of anguish, that when at last this burden was removed and the sun shone again it was to be expected that she should have a thirst for pleasure.