in spite of this fact, the hours were rolling by, and Maurice had not
returned.

"What if something has happened to him!" both father and mother were
thinking.

No; nothing had happened to him. Only a word from Mlle. Lacheneur had
sufficed to make him forget his usual deference to his father's wishes.

"This evening," she had said, "I shall certainly know your heart."

What could this mean? Could she doubt him?

Tortured by the most cruel anxieties, the poor youth could not resolve
to go away without an explanation, and he hung around the chateau hoping
that Marie-Anne would reappear.

She did reappear at last, but leaning upon the arm of her father.

Young d'Escorval followed them at a distance, and soon saw them enter
the parsonage. What were they going to do there? He knew that the duke
and his son were within.

The time that they remained there, and which he passed in the public
square, seemed more than a century long.

They emerged at last, however, and he was about to join them when he was
prevented by the appearance of Martial, whose promises he overheard.

Maurice knew nothing of life; he was as innocent as a child, but he