By the time Berenger had explained matters to his wife and brother, and snatched a hasty meal, a party of gay, soldierly-looking fellows were in the saddle, commanded by a bronzed sergeant who was perfectly at home in conducting messages between contending parties.  After a dark ride of about five miles, the camp at the village of St. Esme was reached, and this person recommended that he himself should go forward with a trumpet, since M. de Ribaumont was liable to be claimed as an escaped prisoner.  There was then a tedious delay, but at length the soldier returned, and another horseman with him.  A priest who had come to the camp in search of M. de Nid de Merle was willing to trust himself to the King of Navarre’s safe-conduct.

‘Thanks, sir,’ cried Berenger; ‘this is a work of true charity.’

‘I think I know that voice,’ said the priest.

‘The priest of Nissard!’

’Even so, sir.  I was seeking M. de Nid de Merle, and had but just learnt that he had been left behind wounded.’

‘You came to tell him of his sister?’

And as they rode together the priest related to Berenger that M. de Solivet had remained in the same crushed, humiliated mood, not exactly penitent, but too much disappointed and overpowered with shame to heed what became of her provided she were not taken back to her brother or her aunt.  She knew that repentance alone was left for her, and permitted herself to be taken to Lucon, where Mere Monique was the only person whom she had ever respected.  There had no doubt been germs of good within her, but the crime and intrigue of the siren court of Catherine de Medicis had choked them; and the first sense of better things had been awakened by the frank simplicity of the young cousin, while, nevertheless, jealousy and family tactics had led her to aid in his destruction, only to learn through her remorse how much she loved him.  And when in his captivity she thought him in her power, but found him beyond her reach, unhallowed as was her passion, yet still the contemplation of the virtues of one beloved could not fail to raise her standard.  It was for his truth and purity that she had loved him, even while striving to degrade these quantities; and when he came forth from her ordeal unscathed, her worship of him might for a time be more intense, but when the idol was removed, the excellence she had first learnt to adore in him might yet lead that adoration up to the source of all excellence.  All she sought NOW was shelter wherein to weep and cower unseen; but the priest believed that her tears would soon spring from profound depths of penitence such as often concluded the lives of the gay ladies of France.  Mere Monique had received her tenderly, and the good priest had gone from Lucon to announce her fate to her aunt and brother.

At Bellaise he had found the Abbess much scandalized.  She had connived at her niece’s releasing the prisoner, for she had acquired too much regard for him to let him perish under Narcisse’s hands, and she had allowed Veronique to personate Diane at the funeral mass, and also purposely detained Narcisse to prevent the detection of the escape; but the discovery that her niece had accompanied his flight had filled her with shame and furry.