Monsieur and Madame de St. Gre themselves came with me to my chamber off the gallery, where everything was prepared for my arrival with the most loving care,—­Monsieur de St. Gre supplying many things from his wardrobe which I lacked.  And when I tried to thank them for their kindness he laid his hand upon my shoulder.

“Tenez, mon ami,” he said, “you got your illness by doing things for other people.  It is time other people did something for you.”

Lindy brought me the daintiest of suppers, and I was left to my meditations.  Nick looked in at the door, and hinted darkly that I had to thank a certain tyrant for my abandonment.  I called to him, but he paid no heed, and I heard him chuckling as he retreated along the gallery.  The journey, the excitement into which I had been plunged by the news I had heard, brought on a languor, and I was between sleeping and waking half the night.  I slept to dream of her, of the Vicomte, her husband, walking in his park or playing cards amidst a brilliant company in a great candle-lit room like the drawing-room at Temple Bow.  Doubt grew, and sleep left me.  She was free now, indeed, but was she any nearer to me?  Hope grew again,—­why had she left me in New Orleans?  She had received a letter, and if she had cared she would not have remained.  But there was a detestable argument to fit that likewise, and in the light of this argument it was most natural that she should return to Les Iles.  And who was I, David Ritchie, a lawyer of the little town of Louisville, to aspire to the love of such a creature?  Was it likely that Helene, Vicomtesse d’Ivry-le-Tour, would think twice of me?  The powers of the world were making ready to crush the presumptuous France of the Jacobins, and the France of King and Aristocracy would be restored.  Chateaux and lands would be hers again, and she would go back again to that brilliant life among the great to which she was born, for which nature had fitted her.  Last of all was the thought of the Englishman whom I resembled.  She would go back to him.

Nick was the first in my room the next morning.  He had risen early (so he ingenuously informed me) because Antoinette had a habit of getting up with the birds, and as I drank my coffee he was emphatic in his denunciations of the customs of the country.

“It is a wonderful day, Davy,” he cried; “you must hurry and get out.  Monsieur de St. Gre sends his compliments, and wishes to know if you will pardon his absence this morning.  He is going to escort Antoinette and me over to see some of my prospective cousins, the Bertrands.”  He made a face, and bent nearer to my ear.  “I swear to you I have not had one moment alone with her.  We have been for a walk, but Madame la Vicomtesse must needs intrude herself upon us.  Egad, I told her plainly what I thought of her tyranny.”

“And what did she say?” I asked, trying to smile.

“She laughed, and said that I belonged to a young nation which had done much harm in the world to everybody but themselves.  Faith, if I wasn’t in love with Antoinette, I believe I’d be in love with her.”