“I will consult my father,” she replied.

“You will not see him again.  I have received orders to arrest him and send him in chains, under escort, to Rouen,” said d’Artagnon, leaving Gabrielle dumb with terror.

The young girl sprang to the house, and found Etienne horrified by the silence of the nurse in answer to his question, “Where is she?”

“I am here!” cried the young girl, whose voice was icy, her step heavy, her color gone.

“What has happened?” he said.  “I heard you cry.”

“Yes, I hurt my foot against—­”

“No, love,” replied Etienne, interrupting her.  “I heard the steps of a man.”

“Etienne, we must have offended God; let us kneel down and pray.  I will tell you afterwards.”

Etienne and Gabrielle knelt down at the prie-dieu, and the nurse recited her rosary.

“O God!” prayed the girl, with a fervor which carried her beyond terrestrial space, “if we have not sinned against thy divine commandments, if we have not offended the Church, not yet the king, we, who are one and the same being, in whom love shines with the light that thou hast given to the pearl of the sea, be merciful unto us, and let us not be parted either in this world or in that which is to come.”

“Mother!” added Etienne, “who art in heaven, obtain from the Virgin that if we cannot—­Gabrielle and I—­be happy here below we may at least die together, and without suffering.  Call us, and we will go to thee.”

Then, having recited their evening prayers, Gabrielle related her interview with Baron d’Artagnon.

“Gabrielle,” said the young man, gathering strength from his despair, “I shall know how to resist my father.”

He kissed her on the forehead, but not again upon the lips.  Then he returned to the castle, resolved to face the terrible man who had weighed so fearfully on his life.  He did not know that Gabrielle’s house would be surrounded and guarded by soldiers the moment that he quitted it.

The next day he was struck down with grief when, on going to see her, he found her a prisoner.  But Gabrielle sent her nurse to tell him she would die sooner than be false to him; and, moreover, that she knew a way to deceive the guards, and would soon take refuge in the cardinal’s library, where no one would suspect her presence, though she did not as yet know when she could accomplish it.  Etienne on that returned to his room, where all the forces of his heart were spent in the dreadful suspense of waiting.

At three o’clock on the afternoon of that day the equipages of the duke and suite entered the courtyard of the castle.  Madame la Comtesse de Grandlieu, leaning on the arm of her daughter, the duke and Marquise de Noirmoutier mounted the grand staircase in silence, for the stern brow of the master had awed the servants.  Though Baron d’Artagnon now knew that Gabrielle had evaded his guards, he assured the duke she was