The Abbess Of Vlaye. Stanley John Weyman

to me."

      "The Countess, sir?" the lad exclaimed in astonishment.

      The Vicomte swore. "No, fool!" he replied. "Your sister! Is she master of the house, or am I? Bid her descend this instant and tell me what is forward and what she has learned."

      Roger, with secret reluctance, obeyed, and his father, sorely fretting, awaited his return. Two minutes elapsed, and three. Seldom stirring abroad, the Vicomte had, in spite of all his talk about Coutras, an overweening sense of his own importance, and he was about to break out in fury when Bonne at length entered. She was followed by Roger.

      It was clear at a glance that the girl was frightened; less clear that mixed with her fear was another emotion. "Well," the Vicomte cried, throwing himself back in his great chair and fixing her with his angry eyes. "What is it? Am I to know nothing--in my own house?"

      Bonne controlled herself by an effort. "On the contrary, sir, there is that which I think you should know," she murmured. "The Countess has told me the story. She was attacked on the road, some of her people she fears were killed, and all were scattered. She herself escaped barely with her life."

      The Vicomte stared. "Where?" he said. "Where was it?"

      "An hour from here, sir."

      "Towards Vlaye?"

      "Yes, sir."

      "And she barely escaped?"

      "You saw her, sir."

      "And who--who does she say dared to commit this outrage?"

      Bonne did not answer. Her eyes sought her brother's and sank again. She trembled.

      The Vicomte, though not the keenest of observers, detected her embarrassment. He fancied that he knew its origin, and the cause of her hesitation. In a voice of triumph, "Ay, who?" he replied. "You don't wish to say. But I can tell you. I read it in your face. I can tell you, disobedient wench, who alone would be guilty of such an outrage. Those gutter-sweepings"--his face swelled with rage--"made up of broken lacqueys and ploughboys, whom they call Crocans! Eh, girl, is it not so?" he continued savagely. "Am I not right?"

      "No, sir," she murmured without daring to look up.

      His face fell. "No?" he repeated. "No? But I don't believe you! Who then? Don't lie to me! Who then?" He rapped the table before him.

      "The Captain of Vlaye," she whispered.

      The Vicomte sank back in his chair. "Impossible!" he cried. Then in a much lower tone: "Impossible!" he repeated. "You dream, girl. M. de Vlaye has done some things not quite--not regular. But--but in cases perfectly different. To people of--of no consequence! This cannot be!"

      "I fear it is so, sir," she whispered, without raising her eyes. "Nor is that--the worst."

      The Vicomte clenched his fingers about the arms of his chair and nodded the question he could not frame.

      "It was with the Abbess, sir--with my sister," Bonne continued in a low tone, "that the Countess was to stay the night. I fear that it was from her that he learned where and how to beset her."

      The Vicomte looked as if he was about to have a fit.

      "What?" he cried. "Do you dare, unnatural girl, to assert that your sister was privy to this outrage?"

      "Heaven forbid, sir!" Bonne answered fervently. "She knew naught of it. But----"

      "Then why----"

      "But it was from her, I fear, that he learned where the child--she is little more--could be surprised."

      The Vicomte glared at her without speaking. The Lieutenant, who had listened, not without admiration of the girl's sense and firmness, seized the opening to intervene. "Were it not well, sir," he said, his matter-of-fact tone calming the Vicomte's temper, "if mademoiselle told us as nearly as possible what she has heard? And, as she has been somewhat shaken, perhaps you will permit her to sit down! She will then, I think, be able to tell us more quickly what we want."

      The Vicomte gave a surly assent, and the Lieutenant himself placed a stool for the girl where she could lean upon the table. Her father opened his eyes at the attention, but something in des Ageaux's face silenced the sneer on his lips, and he waited until Bonne began.

      "The Countess lay at Pons last night, sir," she said in a low tone. "There the lady who was formerly her gouvernante, and still rules her household, fell ill. The plague is in Western Poitou, and though the Countess would have stayed, her physician insisted that she should proceed. Accordingly she left the invalid in his charge and that of some of her people, while she herself pursued her way through Jonsac and Barbesieux with a train reduced to fourteen persons, of whom eight were well armed."