troops. In Philip's absence the valiant governor-general of the duchy,
aided by the influence and courage of the Comtesse Chantavoine, had thus
far saved it from dismemberment, in spite of attempted betrayals by
Damour the Intendant, who still remained Philip's enemy.

But when the Marquis Grandjon-Larisse, the uncle of the Comtesse, died,
her cousin, General Grandjon-Larisse of the Republican army--whose word
with Dalbarade had secured Philip's release years before for her own
safety, first urged and then commanded her temporary absence from the
duchy. So far he had been able to protect it from the fury of the
Republicans and the secret treachery of the Jacobins. But a time of
great peril was now at hand. Under these anxieties and the lack of other
inspiration than duty, her health had failed, and at last she obeyed her
cousin, joining Philip at the Castle of Mont Orgueil.

More than a year had passed since she had seen him, but there was no
emotion, no ardour in their present greeting. From the first there had
been nothing to link them together. She had married, hoping that she
might love thereafter; he in choler and bitterness, and in the stress of
a desperate ambition. He had avoided the marriage so long as he might,
in hope of preventing it until the Duke should die, but with the irony of
fate the expected death had come two hours after the ceremony. Then,
shortly afterwards, came the death of the imbecile Leopold John; and
Philip found himself the Duc de Bercy, and within a year, by reason of a
splendid victory for the Imperturbable, an admiral.

Truth to tell, in this battle he had fought for victory for his ship and
a fall for himself: for the fruit he had plucked was turning to dust and
ashes. He was haunted by the memory of a wronged woman, as she herself
had foretold. Death, with the burial of private dishonour under the