than the scant information which so far she had received.

"Enough, at least, to justify my hanging him," answered Bellecour
grimly. "He sought to withstand my authority; he incited the
peasants of Bellecour to withstand it; he has killed Blaise, and he
would have killed me but that I preferred to let him kill my horse."

"In what way did he seek to withstand your authority!" she persisted.

He stared at her, half surprised, half angry.

"What doers the manner of it signify?" he asked impatiently. "Is
not the fact enough? Is it not enough that Blaise is dead, and that
I have had a narrow escape, at his hands?"

"Insolent hound that he is!" put in Madame la Marquise - a fleshly
lady monstrously coiffed. "If we allow such men as thus to live
in France our days are numbered."

"They say that you are going to hang him," said Suzanne, heedless
of her mother's words, and there was the faintest note of horror in
her voice.

"They are mistaken. I am not."

"You are mot?" cried the Marquise. "But what, then, do you intend
to do?"

"To keep my word, madame," he answered her. "I promised that
canaille that if he ever came within the grounds of Bellecour I