with him at once, and had in effect caused her pony to be saddled,
and he had ridden away with her to his old tower, leaving his
brother, the Chevalier, to conduct the attack on the Huguenot
conventicle.

'He had no power or right to remove her,' said the Baron. 'How
could you let him do so in my absence? He had made over her
wardship to me, and has no right to resume it!'

'Well, perhaps I might have insisted on his waiting till your
return; but, you see, the children have never done anything but
quarrel and fight, and always by Eustacie's fault; and if ever they
are to endure each other, it must be by being separated now.'

'Madame,' said the Baron, gravely, 'you have done your utmost to
ruin your son's chances of happiness.'

That same evening arrived the King's passport permitting the Baron
de Ribaumont and his family to pay a visit to his wife's friends in
England. The next morning the Baron was summoned to speak to one of
his farmers, a Huguenot, who had come to inform him that, through
the network of intelligence kept up by the members of the
persecuted faith, it had become known that the Chevalier de
Ribaumont had set off for court that night, and there was little
doubt that his interference would lead to an immediate revocation
of the sanction to the journey, if to no severer measures. At
best, the Baron knew that if his own absence were permitted, it
would be only on condition of leaving his son in the custody of
either the Queen-mother or the Count. It had become impossible to
reclaim Eustacie. Her father would at once have pleaded that she