“ And so thou lovest him, this weak fool whom thou plottedst to destroy? Nay, blanch not, but picture to thyself how great will be his love to thee when he knoweth the truth! Picture to yourself his rage, his despair, his agony, when he learns that his sister perished in innocence, and the woman who dragged her to the stake, the woman whose arms clung around his neck, whose warm kisses were passed to his lips, whose siren tongue whispered of faith and devotion, was also the one to pour into the betrothal cup the deadly drops that should send the proud bridegroom to keep festival with Death! ”

“ It is without doubt visitors who have but lately arrived, and look, pillions also! Verily, what dames can so unexpectedly have honoured us, here at Arteze?"
"Some travellers doubtless who have lost their way," suggested Marie. "But see, lady, here cometh Job, with his foolish face all agog with news."
"Which we are as fain to hear as he to tell," cried Gwennola, laughing gaily, for her spirits had risen to hail any change which came to break the monotony of existence; besides, might this strange visit not be in some way connected with her absent lover? ”

“ A very land of desolation this, yet grand and even beautiful in its rugged, mournful way, for there is a vein of poetry which runs throughout Brittany, even in its loneliest and most desolate parts, a poetry which finds its expression in the history of its people, set as it is to the music of its wild winds, waves, and rugged moorlands, music in a minor key wailing across wastes and through valleys and forests, music which sings of love and passion, the free untamable spirit of the Celt, with all its romance and love of the supernatural. ”

“ So at length the hesitation came to an end, and Henri d'Estrailles rode out of Martigue with Gwennola de Mereac clinging to his saddle-bow and the wild landes before them, where the wind howled its welcome and the rain beat in their faces as if laughing at their triumph over its rival element. But what cared Henri or Gwennola for wind or rain? Behind them lay their enemies, vanquished and overcome, and before them through the mists of wind and rain shone the sunshine of love and life—love, life, and each other. ”

“ Yes, the gates should be shut on this man, and in the Sieur de Mereac should arise a new creature, upright, honourable, knightly, a phantom figure striving to be ever what the woman he loved had pictured him. Strange freak of complex human nature, seldom found so lost as to be beyond the pale of redemption; cruel and sin-hardened as this man was, there must needs have been a heart somewhere buried deeply within him, which afar off worshipped goodness and truth,—a heart which had been roused into life, amidst corruption, by a woman's pure touch. ”

“ Gwennola felt the shudder that ran through the gaunt frame, and the thought of Gloire's vengeance seemed to her less terrible than heretofore.
"He is dead!" she cried, divining swiftly of whom he spoke. "Gloire hath killed him but now, on the heath without; but ere he died methinks he repented of the ill he did thee, which the rather took the form of vengeance to another, even blacker-hearted than himself, than from hatred to thee."
"Dead?" echoed Yvon with a sob of sudden joy. "François Kerden dead? and thou here, little Gwennola, to save me? Nay! ”

“ Bound and gagged as she lay, she could neither move nor cry aloud; and, in the midst of all her agony, came the fatal intuition that even now, once again, death would be awaiting her lover. Terrible hours those; the limits of human endurance stretched to their utmost on the rack, not only of love's fears but the crudest torture of remorse. Vividly there came before the eyes of Diane de Coray the picture of her life,—a picture so sad, so melancholy, so pathetic, that the tears of self-pity and sympathy splashed down her pale cheeks. ”

“ Whilst at night, as she knelt in prayer within her lonely hut, she would thank the good God and all her guardian saints, with child-like simplicity and gratitude, for sending into her life one so noble and so good as Guillaume de Coray, repeating the name softly and reverently to herself, as though it possessed some charm to drive away all dreams of ill, as she lay in her wooden bed, watching the flickering moonlight as it fell across the threshold—the white, beautiful moonlight, which was no purer than her thoughts as she fell to sleep murmuring her lover's name. ”

“ So that when Father Ambrose had come to him, telling him to saddle Barbe, the fleetest mare in the stables, and ride with him to Martigue to save his mistress and proclaim her innocence, he had lost little time in complying, muttering curses and prayers alike, whilst the tears ran down his brown cheeks as he sprang into the saddle, and, with the good priest clinging on for dear life behind, dashed out, across the drawbridge and away through the forest so madly that surely Providence only could have upheld the grey mare's feet as she sped along the narrow, dangerous path. ”

“ Yes, little one, weep not, for it is even so, bitter as it seemeth to say it,—and how bitter the holy saints only know; for death is a sorry guest when love has stepped in before him. And I love thee, my Diane, I love thee, with all this poor heart of mine—not worthy of thee, sweet, nay, not worthy, for suffering and fear have left but a sorry wreck of the Yvon de Mereac who once was. And yet, Diane, thou hast loved this poor, weak one, so unworthy of thee! ”

“ Tiens! petite, canst say no word to comfort me? Bah! with thy great eyes thou hast no more sense than the owls which cry all night in the forest yonder. Nay! forgive me, Marie, and comfort me, because, because——"
"Nay, lady," sighed the waiting-maid, "I fear me there is little to be said, for see, you tell me that on the morrow Monsieur de Mereac——"
"Ah, listen then, Marie, and I will explain all to thee," said Gwennola, clasping her hands as she looked piteously across into Marie's sympathetic face. ”

“ Gwennola allowed her palfrey to draw even closer to her father's steed as she raised a smiling face to his.
"Nay, my father," she said tenderly. "'Tis but that I love justice as thou dost, and, moreover, my heart tells me that yon poor knight, even if he be a Frenchman, is no spy."
"Nevertheless," said her father sternly, "a Frenchman is the enemy of the Breton; he comes not by chance to the forest of Arteze, my child, and, though I fail not in hospitality to a sick man, yet scant welcome will the servant of the King of France find under the roof of a soldier of the Duchess Anne." ”

“ She had believed in him, this simple peasant girl, with the face and mind of a holy Madonna, and the trust had awakened within him that long silent chord of chivalry and honour from which love itself had sprung. In her presence he was no longer the Guillaume de Coray whom the world knew, but one who strove to cloak that evil presence in a garb of honour and nobility. And in the deception itself lay the very germ of a new-born nobler self, a desire to lay aside for ever that hidden being of sin and become that which he read himself to be in her pure eyes. ”

“ The Frenchman shall have justice, but no more—the nearest tree for the spy, and short shrift too, if he cannot bring good account of his presence here."
Gwennola sighed. "He is no spy," she whispered to herself, but to her father she dared return no answer, but bent low over the beautiful bird attached to her wrist by a slender golden chain, to hide perchance the tears in her blue eyes rather than from any desire to gaze at her pet's bright plumage, or count the tiny golden bells on its hood. ”

“ To linger there might speedily reveal to the agonized brother that his sister's lover was verily in the flesh and no ghostly agent from the unseen world; and so, with murmurs of sympathy, she hastened back with him towards the château, followed by her brother and Pierre the fool. But to her whispered words Yvon de Mereac answered not at all; the blow had been so sudden, so overpowering, that his weak spirit reeled under it. To a Breton honour stands even before love itself, the Duchess Anne voicing the sentiments of her people in her chivalrous motto, "Death is preferable to dishonour." ”

“ And because I love thee, Yvon, with all my heart and soul I pray thee strive to save thyself from these cruel spells, and even, if need be, tear from its parent-tree this smitten branch and cast it into the fire."
"Gwennola!—Gwennola!" moaned Yvon; "my father's darling,—his little Gwennola! Is it possible that thou hast so fallen—art become so lost? Diane," he cried, turning almost fiercely upon her, "I accept thy word. Prove to me my sister's guilt, and I will myself light the faggots which shall purify the honour of the house of Mereac. ”

“ But even the news of her father's unrelenting anger towards her failed to move Gwennola's heart. All thought, all feeling, was for the time being centred on her lover, after the manner of foolish and wayward maidens who, in the awakening of such passion, forget the love which has sheltered them from childhood; and in the case of Gwennola de Mereac such forgetfulness might in some measure be excused, seeing that love had been born with her twin-sister pity for a sick and innocent man, and such pity roused to the depths the finer fibres of her woman's heart. ”

“ Yvon!" she moaned. "Ah! why may I not die? Why may I not die? I may not ask thee to forgive me, but oh! for the sake of our sweet Lady of Pity, curse me not!"
"Curse thee?" he muttered faintly, "nay, myself the rather, seeing I love thee still, and as truly as ever; and yet the little Gwennola——"
A smothered sob choked him, and Diane knew that though love stood there calling to her with outstretched arms of forgiveness, there lay between them the irrevocable shadow of a sister's blood. ”

“ With a bitter curse the old man sprang to his feet with such vigour that Gloire and Reine raised their great heads with a short bark of excitement.
"He?" cried de Mereac, his voice quivering with fury, "he?—the man whose life I spared? the man who has partaken of my hospitality and eaten my salt? He? the base murderer of my Yvon?—my boy—my boy!" In spite of his anger his voice broke over the last words; then a fresh tempest seized him. "Fool!" he cried, gripping de Coray by the shoulder, "wherefore didst thou not tell me this when we found him yonder? ”

“ The gentle, tender Yvon de Mereac, with his weak, wavering will, but chivalrous heart, had by degrees inflamed her with a passion hitherto unknown. From contempt at first had sprung pity, and, from pity, love itself; not the calm, sweet love of the smoothly-flowing stream, but the mad, tumultuous rush of the mountain torrent, which sweeps aside all obstructions, and dashing blindly over rocks and boulders flings itself with exhausted passion into the deep, still pool below. The mutual dislike between Gwennola and herself had risen, on her own part, from inborn jealousy. ”

“ Those were days when the romance of love indeed reigned paramount in every woman's heart, from the lady who, from her casement, smiled down at her knight riding by with her favour in his helmet, to the serving wench who watched her swain go from her to the wars with a tear in her eye and a choking pride in her throat at sight of his gallant bearing and the bunch of bright ribbons she had herself pinned to his breast. ”

“ Flesh and blood without doubt was the intruder, no hollow-eyed apparition of the dead, such as they had half dreaded: a man, short, thick-set, with a red stubbly beard and hard, reckless eyes, which stared now into theirs with a fierce, yet frightened defiance.
"Monsieur de Coray?" he gasped, and looked eagerly behind the girls towards Job, who had hurried up to his young mistress's side.
"De Coray?" questioned Gwennola, who was the first of the three to regain her self-possession, signing at the same time to Job to keep by her side. "Is it then Monsieur de Coray with whom you desire speech?" ”