"Very well," said Andre-Louis. "It shall be as you please. But
nothing shall prevent me at least from walking with you as far as
the chateau, and waiting for you while you make your appeal to M.
de Kercadiou."

And so they left the house good friends, for the sweetness of M.
de Vilmorin's nature did not admit of rancour, and together they
took their way up the steep main street of Gavrillac.



CHAPTER II

THE ARISTOCRAT


The sleepy village of Gavrillac, a half-league removed from the main
road to Rennes, and therefore undisturbed by the world's traffic,
lay in a curve of the River Meu, at the foot, and straggling halfway
up the slope, of the shallow hill that was crowned by the squat manor.
By the time Gavrillac had paid tribute to its seigneur - partly in
money and partly in service - tithes to the Church, and imposts to
the King, it was hard put to it to keep body and soul together with
what remained. Yet, hard as conditions were in Gavrillac, they were
not so hard as in many other parts of France, not half so hard, for
instance, as with the wretched feudatories of the great Lord of La
Tour d'Azyr, whose vast possessions were at one point separated from
this little village by the waters of the Meu.

The Chateau de Gavrillac owed such seigneurial airs as might be