He was off by seven next morning to the coach office in the Rue
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, and was so lucky as to find a vacant seat in
the diligence then starting for Caen.

It was not without deep emotion that the young lawyer saw once more
the spires of the cathedral at Bayeux. As yet no hope of his life had
been cheated, and his heart swelled with the generous feelings that
expand in the youthful soul.

After the too lengthy feast of welcome prepared by his father, who
awaited him with some friends, the impatient youth was conducted to a
house, long familiar to him, standing in the Rue Teinture. His heart
beat high when his father--still known in the town of Bayeux as the
Comte de Granville--knocked loudly at a carriage gate off which the
green paint was dropping in scales. It was about four in the
afternoon. A young maid-servant, in a cotton cap, dropped a short
curtsey to the two gentlemen, and said that the ladies would soon be
home from vespers.

The Count and his son were shown into a low room used as a
drawing-room, but more like a convent parlor. Polished panels of dark
walnut made it gloomy enough, and around it some old-fashioned chairs
covered with worsted work and stiff armchairs were symmetrically
arranged. The stone chimney-shelf had no ornament but a discolored
mirror, and on each side of it were the twisted branches of a pair of
candle-brackets, such as were made at the time of the Peace of Utrecht.
Against a panel opposite, young Granville saw an enormous crucifix of
ebony and ivory surrounded by a wreath of box that had been blessed.
Though there were three windows to the room, looking out on a