longer in the Temple. I believe that Heaven sent her that one scrap
of comfort, tempered as it was by the knowledge that her daughter
remained a prisoner in their hands. But it was to her son that her
affections were given. For the Duchess never had the gift of
winning love. As she is now--a cold, hard, composed woman--so she
was in her prison in the Temple at the age of fifteen. You may take
it from one who has known her all his life. And from that moment to
this--"

The Marquis paused, and made a gesture with his hands, descriptive
of space and the unknown.

"From that moment to this--nothing. Nothing of the Dauphin."

He turned in his seat and looked questioningly up toward the
crumbling church, with its square tower, stricken, years ago, by
lightning; with its grass-grown graveyard marked by stones all grey
and hoary with immense age and the passage of cold and stormy
winters.

"Who knows," he added, "what may have become of him? Who can say
where he lies? For a life begun as his began was not likely to be a
long one. Though troubles do not kill. Witness myself, who am five
years his senior."

Colville looked at him in obedience to an inviting gesture of the
hand; looked as at something he did not understand, something beyond
his understanding, perhaps. For the troubles had not been Monsieur
de Gemosac's own troubles, but those of his country.