"But," said Angelique, "Monseigneur has been married, and has not he a
son at least twenty years of age?"

Hubertine had taken up the shears to remodel one of the pieces of
vellum.

"Yes," she replied, "the Abbot Cornille told me the whole story, and it
is a very sad history. When but twenty years of age, Monseigneur was a
captain under Charles X. In 1830, when only four-and-twenty, he resigned
his position in the army, and it is said that from that time until he
was forty years of age he led an adventurous life, travelling everywhere
and having many strange experiences. At last, one evening, he met,
at the house of a friend in the country, the daughter of the Count de
Valencay, Mademoiselle Pauline, very wealthy, marvellously beautiful,
and scarcely nineteen years of age, twenty-two years younger than
himself. He fell violently in love with her, and, as she returned his
affection, there was no reason why the marriage should not take place
at once. He then bought the ruins of Hautecoeur for a mere song--ten
thousand francs, I believe--with the intention of repairing the Chateau
and installing his wife therein when all would be in order and in
readiness to receive her. In the meanwhile they went to live on one of
his family estates in Anjou, scarcely seeing any of their friends, and
finding in their united happiness the days all too short. But, alas! at
the end of a year Pauline had a son and died."

Hubert, who was still occupied with marking out his pattern, raised
his head, showing a very pale face as he said in a low voice: "Oh! the
unhappy man!"

"It was said that he himself almost died from his great grief,"