of their own name and race; and why their mother upon her deathbed had
spoken to them not of any inheritance that they might look to claim from
descent through their father, but of Basildene, which was theirs in very
right, as it had been hers before, till her ambitious and unscrupulous
kinsman had driven her forth.

And now what should they do? Whither should they go; and what should be
the object of the lives -- the new lives of purpose and resolve which
had awakened within them?

Gaston had given voice to this feeling in vowing them to the attempt to
recover their lost heritage of Basildene, and Father Anselm did not
oppose either that desire or the ardent wish of the youths to fare forth
into the great world alone.

"My sons," he said a few days later, when he had come to see if the
twins held yet to their first resolve. "You are something young as yet
to sally forth into the unknown world and carve for yourselves your
fortunes there; but nevertheless I trow the day has come, for this place
is no longer a safe shelter for you. The Sieur de Navailles, as it is
told me, is already searching for you. It cannot be long before he finds
your hiding place, and then no man may call your lives safe by night or
day. And not only would ye yourselves be in peril, but peril would
threaten good Jean and Margot; and methinks you would be sorely loath
that harm should come to them through the faithful kindness they have
ever shown to you and yours."

"Sooner would we die than that one hair of their head should be
touched!" cried both the boys impetuously; "and Margot lives in fear and
trembling ever since we told her of the words we spoke to yon tyrant and