six months hence, when the need of him and his loyalty would be
passed.

A man approached them briskly from the chateau. He brought news
that a numerous company of monks was descending the valley of the
Isere towards Condillac. A faint excitement stirred her, and
accompanied by Tressan she retraced her steps and made for the
battlements, whence she might overlook their arrival.

As they went Tressan asked for an explanation of this cortege, and
she answered him with Fortunio's story of how things had sped
yesterday at La Rochette.

Up the steps leading to the battlements she went ahead of him, with
a youthful, eager haste that took no thought for the corpulence and
short-windedness of the following Seneschal. From the heights she
looked eastwards, shading her eyes from the light of the morning
sun, and surveyed the procession which with slow dignity paced down
the valley towards Condillac.

At its head walked the tall, lean figure of the Abbot of Saint
Francis of Cheylas, bearing on high a silvered crucifix that flashed
and scintillated in the sunlight. His cowl was thrown back,
revealing his pale, ascetic countenance and shaven head. Behind him
came a coffin covered by a black pall, and borne on the shoulders of
six black-robed, black cowled monks, and behind these again walked,
two by two, some fourteen cowled brothers of the order of Saint
Francis, their heads bowed, their arms folded, and their hands tucked
away in their capacious sleeves.