fame had come to her, he had protested to himself that it was honour for
honour; and every day he had laboured, sometimes how fantastically, how
futilely! to dignify his position, to enhance his importance in her eyes.
She had understood it all, had read him to the last letter in the
alphabet of his mind and heart. She had realised the consternation of
the people, and she knew that, for her sake, and because the Cure had
commanded, all the obsolete claims he had made were responded to by the
people. Certainly he had affected them by his eloquence and his fiery
kindness, but at the same time they had shrewdly smelt the treason
underneath his ardour. There was a definite limit to their loyalty to
him; and, deprived of the Seigneury, he would count for nothing.

A hundred thoughts like these went through her mind as she stood by the
table under the hanging lamp, her face white as the loose robe she wore,
her eyes hot and staring, her figure rigid as stone.

To-morrow--how could she face to-morrow, and Louis! How could she tell
him this! How could she say to him, "Louis, you are no longer Seigneur.
The man you hate, he who is your inveterate enemy, who has every reason
to exact from you the last tribute of humiliation, is Seigneur here!"
How could she face the despair of the man whose life was one inward
fever, one long illusion, which was yet only half an illusion, since
he was forever tortured by suspicion; whose body was wearing itself out,
and spirit was destroying itself in the struggle of a vexed imagination!

She knew that Louis' years were numbered. She knew that this blow would
break him body and soul. He could never survive the humiliation. His
sensitiveness was a disease, his pride was the only thing that kept him
going; his love of her, strong as it was, would be drowned in an imagined
shame!