Blanche took her fingers from her eyes, and, looking up with a smile, put De Vitry's great strong hand on her beating heart, and pressed her own delicate hand upon it.
"See, De Vitry," she said, "just as your hand is stronger than my hand, so is your heart firmer than my heart. Mine is a very weak one, husband, but I will show no fear before your guests. I will be very brave."
The words were hardly uttered when there came another flash, and Blanche's promised bravery did not prevent her from starting and covering her eyes again; and De Vitry, with a laugh, turned to the window and gazed forth once more.
"By Heaven!" he exclaimed, "it is his highness the Duke of Orleans. I heard he was coming down to Valence, but never dreamed of his coming here. It is lucky the castle lies so near the road. But I must down and meet him;" and he hastily quitted the room.
Blanche was left for some time alone to give way to all her terrors at the storm, without any one to laugh at them, for De Vitry took every hospitable care of his royal guest, and spared his young wife the trouble of giving those orders for the entertainment of the duke and his train which Blanche might have found it difficult to think of in the perturbation of her mind at the time.
As every one knows, the storms on the Isere are frequently as brief as they are fierce; and the one in question was passing away when De Vitry led into the hall the Duke of Orleans, now clothed in fresh and dry garments.
Always courteous and gentle in demeanour, the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII. of France, applied himself to put his entertainers at their ease. He took Blanche's hand and kissed it, saying, "Your noble husband, dear lady, tells me you expect here to-night your cousin and mine, Lorenzo Visconti. If he come, I shall call it a lucky storm that drove me for shelter to your house, as I have much to say to him; but I fear he cannot reach Vitry to-day. The sun is well-nigh down, and the waters of the river seem as high as ever."
"The storm, too, seems going directly along his road," said De Vitry, "and if it reached him where I think he must have first felt it, he will know that he cannot cross the bridge tonight, and find shelter amongst the peasants' cottages out beyond the hills there. But I trust your highness will stay over to-morrow, as you wish to see him. He is certain to be here, I think, early in the morning."
"I must be away before noon," said the duke, "and in case he should not arrive before I go, you must tell him from me, De Vitry, that I have the king's permission to call any noble gentleman to my aid who is willing to draw the sword for the recovery of my heritage of Milan. Now I think a Visconti would rather see a child of a Visconti in the ducal chair of Milan than any other. Thus I fully count upon his aid toward the end of autumn, with all the men that we can raise. So tell him from me, De Vitry."
"You may count surely, my lord the duke, upon Lorenzo's going to any place where there is a chance of his losing his life," said De Vitry. "He is in a curious mood just now."