Nanon had hardly finished the letter, when they heard hurried footsteps at the foot of the stairs, and Courtauvaux ran up quickly and opened the door, with the expansive expression of a bearer of news which he knows to be awaited with impatience.
"Here is Monsieur de Canolles, whom I met within a hundred yards of the house," he said.
The duke uttered an exclamation of good-humored surprise. Nanon turned pale, and darted to the door, muttering,—
"It is written that I shall not escape the meeting."
At that moment a new personage appeared in the doorway, arrayed in a magnificent costume, holding his hat in his hand, and with a most gracious smile upon his lips.
IX.
A thunder-bolt falling at Nanon's feet would certainly have caused her no greater surprise than this unexpected apparition, and would not, in all probability, have extorted from her a more sorrowful exclamation than that which escaped from her mouth involuntarily.