These meetings took place daily, and after a few short minutes spent in conversation, the young lovers would set off on a ramble.  More than once they were met by the villagers, and a little scandal began to arise.  This was very imprudent on Diana’s side; but it had been a part of her plan to permit her actions to be talked of by the tongue of scandal.  Unfortunately the end of November was approaching, and the weather growing extremely cold.  One morning, as Norbert arose from his couch, he found that a sharp icy blast was swaying the bare branches of the trees, and that the rain was descending in torrents.  On such a day as this he knew that it was vain to expect Diana, and, with his heart full of sadness, he took up a book and sat himself down by the huge fire that blazed in the great hall.

Mademoiselle de Laurebourg had, however, gone out, but it was in a carriage, and she had driven to a cottage to see a poor woman who had broken her leg, and who had nothing but the scanty earnings of her daughter Francoise upon which to exist.  As soon as Diana entered the cottage she saw that something had gone wrong.

“What is the matter?” asked she.

The poor creature, with garrulous volubility, exhibited a summons which she had just received, and said that she owed three hundred francs, and that as she could no longer pay the interest, she had been summoned, and that her little property would be seized, and so a finishing stroke would be put to her troubles.

“It is the Counsellor,” said she, “that rogue Daumon, who has done all this.”

The poor woman went on to say that when she went to her creditor to implore a little delay, he had scoffingly told her to send her pretty daughter to him to plead her cause.

Mademoiselle de Laurebourg was disgusted at this narrative, and her eyes gleamed with anger.

“I will see this wicked man,” said she, “and will come back to you at once.”

She drove straight to the Counsellor’s house.  Daumon was engaged in writing when the housekeeper ushered Diana into the office.  He rose to his feet, and, taking off his velvet skull cap, made a profound bow, advancing at the same time a chair for his visitor’s accommodation.

Though Diana knew nothing of this man, she was not so unsophisticated as Norbert, and was not imposed upon by the air of servile obsequiousness that he assumed.  With a gesture of contempt, she declined the proffered seat, and this act made Daumon her bitter enemy.

“I have come,” said she in the cold, disdainful words in which young girls of high birth address their inferiors,—­“I have come to you from Widow Rouleau.”

“Ah! you know the poor creature then?”

“Yes, and I take a great interest in her.”

“You are a very kind young lady,” answered the Counsellor with a sinister smile.

“The poor woman is in the most terrible distress both of mind and body.  She is confined to her bed with a fractured limb, and without any means of support.”