Then, at last, when they were alone, he loosed the question that was bubbling on his lips.
"I hear a courier came to Condillac to-day." For answer she told him what he sought to learn, whence came that courier, and what the message that he brought.
"And so, Monsieur de Tressan," she ended, "my days at Condillac are numbered." "Why so ?" he asked, "since you say that Florimond has adopted towards you a friendly tone.

Surely he would not drive his father's widow hence ?" She smiled at the fire in a dreamy, pensive manner.
"No," said she, "he would not drive me hence.

He has offered me the shelter of Condillac for as long as it may pleasure me to make it my home." "Excellent!" he exclaimed, rubbing his little fat hands and screwing the little features of his huge red face into the grotesque semblance of a smile.

"What need to talk of going, then ?" "What need ?" she echoed, in a voice dull and concentrated.

"Do you ask that, Tressan?
Do you think I should elect to live upon the charity of this man ?" For all that the Lord Seneschal may have been dull-witted, yet he had wit enough to penetrate to the very marrow of her meaning.
"You must hate Florimond very bitterly," said he.