On the morrow, which was a Friday and the tenth of November - a date
to be hereafter graven on the memory of all concerned in the affairs
of Condillac - the Dowager rose betimes, and, for decency's sake,
having in mind the business of the day, she gowned herself in black.

Betimes, too, the Lord Seneschal rode out of Grenoble, attended by a
couple of grooms, and headed for Condillac, in doing which - little
though he suspected it - he was serving nobody's interests more
thoroughly than Monsieur de Garnache's.

Madame received him courteously. She was in a blithe - and happy
mood that morning - the reaction from her yesterday's distress of
mind. The world was full of promise, and all things had prospered
with her and Marius. Her boy was lord of Condillac; Florimond, whom
she had hated and who had stood in the way of her boy's advancement,
was dead and on his way to burial; Garnache, the man from Paris who
might have made trouble for them had he ridden home again with the
tale of their resistance, was silenced for all time, and the carp
in the moat would be feasting by now upon what was left of him;
Valerie de La Vauvraye was in a dejected frame of mind that augured
well for the success of the Dowager's plans concerning her, and by
noon at latest there would be priests at Condillac, and, if Marius
still wished to marry the obstinate baggage, there would be no
difficulty as to that.

It was a glorious morning, mild and sunny as an April day, as though
Nature took a hand in the Dowager's triumph and wished to make the
best of its wintry garb in honour of it.

The presence of this gross suitor of hers afforded her another