One of the two men who entered the Hôtel de Nesle as Ascanio emerged therefrom was indeed Messire Robert d'Estourville, Provost of Paris. Who the other was we shall learn in a moment.
Five minutes after Ascanio's departure, while Colombe was still listening and dreaming in her bedroom, whither she had fled, Dame Perrine hurriedly entered, and informed the young woman that her father was awaiting her in the adjoining room.
"My father!" cried Colombe in alarm. "Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" she added in an undertone, "can it be that he met him?"
"Yes, your father, my dear child," rejoined Dame Perrine, replying to the only portion of the sentence that she heard, "and with him another old man whom I do not know."
"Another old man!" exclaimed Colombe, shuddering instinctively. "Mon Dieu! Dame Perrine, what does it mean? It is the first time in two or three years that my father has not come hither alone."
However, notwithstanding her alarm she could but obey, knowing as she did her father's impatient disposition, so she summoned all her courage and returned to the room she had just left with a smile upon her lips. Despite this feeling of dread, which she experienced for the first time and could not explain, she loved Messire d'Estourville as a daughter should love her father, and although his demeanor toward her was far from expansive, the days on which he visited the Hôtel de Nesle were marked as red-letter days among the uniformly gloomy days of her life.
Colombe went forward with outstretched arms and her mouth half open, but the provost gave her no time either to embrace him or to speak. He took her hand, and led her to the stranger, who was leaning against the flower-laden mantel.
"My dear friend," he said, "I present my daughter to you. Colombe," he added, "this is Comte d'Orbec, the king's treasurer and your future husband."
Colombe uttered a feeble exclamation, which she at once stifled, out of regard for the requirements of courtesy; but feeling her knees giving way beneath her, she leaned against the back of a chair for support.
Fully to understand the horror of this unexpected presentation, especially in Colombe's then frame of mind, it is necessary to know what manner of man this Comte d'Orbec was.