It was locked.  Through the latticed door I could see an altar, whereunder the last Du Plessy who had come to rest there, doubtless lay with his kin.

I sat down on one of the benches under the trees.  The ache within me went deep.  But all that sunny hillcrest seemed brightened by the marquis.  It was cheerful as his smile.  “Let us have a glass of wine and enjoy the sun,” he said in the breeze flowing around his chapel.  “And do you hear that little citizen of the tree trunks, Lazarre?”

The perfume of the woods rose invisibly to a cloudless sky.  My last tryst with my friend was an hour in paradise’s antechamber.

The light quick stepping of horses and their rattling harness brought Madame de Ferrier’s carriage quickly around the curve fronting the chapel.  Her presence was the one touch which the place lacked, and I forgot grief, shame, impatience at being found out in my trouble, and stood at her step with my hat in my hand.

She said—­“O Lazarre!”—­and Paul beat on Ernestine’s knee, echoing—­“O Zar!” and my comfort was absolute as release from pain, because she had come to visit her old friend the marquis.

I helped her down and stood with her at the latticed door.

“How bright it is here!” said Eagle.

“It is very bright.  I came up the hill from a dark place.”

“Did the news of his death meet you on the post-road?”

“It met me at the foot of this hill.  The goose girl told me.”

“Oh, you have been hurt!” she said, looking at me.  “Your face is all seamed.  Don’t tell me about Mittau to-day.  Paul and I are taking possession of the estates!”

“Napoleon has given them back to you!”

“Yes, he has!  I begged the De Chaumonts to let me come alone!  By hard posting we reached Mont-Louis last night.  You are the only person in France to whom I would give that vacant seat in the carriage to-day.”

I cared no longer for my own loss, as I am afraid has been too much my way all through life; or whether I was a prince or not.  Like paradise after death, as so many of our best days come, this perfect day was given me by the marquis himself.  Eagle’s summer dress touched me.  Paul and Ernestine sat facing us, and Paul ate cherries from a little basket, and had his fingers wiped, beating the cushion with his heels in excess of impatience to begin again.

We paused at a turn of the height before descending, where fields could be seen stretching to the horizon, woods fair and clean as parks, without the wildness of the American forest, and vineyards of bushy vines that bore the small black grapes.  Eagle showed me the far boundaries of Paul’s estates.  Then we drove where holly spread its prickly foliage near the ground, where springs from cliffs trickled across delicious lanes.

Hoary stone farmhouses, built four-square like a fortress, each having a stately archway, saluted us as we passed by.  The patron and his wife came out, and laborers, pulling their caps, dropped down from high-yoked horses.