THE CROSS UNDER THE APRON The face of Gilles de Laval, Lord of Retz, had shone all day with an unholy lustre like that of iron in which the red heat yet struggles with the black.

In the Castle of Machecoul his familiars went about, wearing expressions upon their countenances in which disgust and expectation were mingled with an overwhelming fear of the terrible baron.
The usual signs of approaching high saturnalia at Machecoul had not been wanting.
Early in the morning La Meffraye had been seen hovering like an unclean bird of prey about the playing grounds of the village children at Saint Benoit on the edges of the forest.

At nine the frightened villagers heard the howl of a day-hunting wolf, and one Louis Verger, a woodman who was cutting bark for the tanneries in the valley, saw a huge grey wolf rush out and seize his little son, Jean, a boy of five years old, who came bringing his father's breakfast.

With a great cry he hurried back to alarm the village, but when men gathered with scythes and rude weapons of the chase, the beast's track was lost in the depth of the forest.
Little Jean Verger of Saint Benoit was never seen again, unless it were he who, half hidden under the long black cloak of La Meffraye, was brought at noon by the private postern of the baron into the Castle of Machecoul.
So the men of Saint Benoit went not back to their work, but abode together all that day, sullen anger burning in their hearts.

And one calling himself the servant of the Bishop of Nantes went about among them, and his words were as knives, sharp and bitter beyond belief.
And ever as he spoke the men turned them about till they faced Machecoul.