’All the servants I came in contact with played the incorruptible; but still I have done something.  There were some fellows in the village who are not at their ease under that rule.  I caused my people to inquire them out.  They knew nothing more than that the old heretic Gardon with his family had gone away in Madame la Duchesse’s litter, but whither they could not tell.  But the cabaretier there is furious secretly with the Quinets for having spoilt his trade by destroying the shrine at the holy well, and I have made him understand that it will be for his profit to send me off intelligence so soon as there is any communication between them and the lady.  I made the same arrangement with a couple of gendarmes of the escort the Duke gave me.  So at least we are safe for intelligence such as would hinder a marriage.’

‘But they will be off to England!’ said the Abbess.

’I wager they will again write to make sure of a reception.  Moreover, I have set that fellow Ercole and others of his trade to keep a strict watch on all the roads leading to the ports, and give me due notice of their passing thither.  We have law on our side, and, did I once claim her, no one could resist my right.  Or should the war break out, as is probable, then could my son sweep their whole province with his troops.  This time she cannot escape us.

The scene that her father’s words and her own imagination conjured up, of Eustacie attracting the handsome widower-duke, removed all remaining scruples from Madame de Selinville.  For his own sake, the Baron must be made to fulfil the prophecy of the ink-pool, and allow his prison doors to be opened by love.  Many and many a tender art did Diane rehearse; numerous were her sighs; wakeful, languishing, and restless her nights and days; and yet, whatever her determination to practise upon her cousin the witcheries that she had learnt in the Escadron de la Reine-mere, and seen played off effectually where there was not one grain of love to inspire them, her powers and her courage always failed her in the presence of him whom she sought to attract.  His quiet reserve and simplicity always disconcerted her, and any attempt at blandishment that he could not mistake was always treated by him as necessarily an accidental error, as if any other supposition would render her despicable; and yet there was now and then a something that made her detect an effort in his restraint, as if it were less distaste than self-command.  Her brother had contemptuously acquiesced in the experiment made by herself and her father, and allowed that so long as there was any danger of the Quinet marriage, the Baron’s existence was needful.  He would not come to Nid-de-Merle, nor did they want him there, knowing that he could hardly have kept his hands off his rival.  But when the war broke out again in the summer of 1575 he joined that detachment of Guise’s army which hovered about the Loire, and kept watch