"Oh, I can find occupation," replied Chazeul. "There are men hunting in the forest; and I should much like to see who they maybe. I will mount, and take some half dozen men with me, to reconnoitre; and if I do not find them too strong, I will hunt them as fiercely as ever they chased deer."
"Take care of ambuscades," cried the Marchioness. "No, no, Chazeul. Better leave them alone till after the wedding. We have got other things to do. We must have a priest to bury the dead, and marry the living."
"How so?" exclaimed Chazeul, in some surprise; "is not father Walter here?"
"Ay, he is here," answered the Marchioness, "but I suspect the good man is not well enough to appear before noon."
She spoke with a meaning smile; and her son demanded, "What is it you mean, mother of mine? There is something in your eye."
"Nothing but rheum," rejoined the Marchioness. "However, if you needs must know, father Walter has discovered your folly with his niece Helen.--That is all."
"Pardi!" exclaimed Chazeul, "What is to be done now?"
"Nothing,"' answered the Marchioness. "I have provided for him. He is sick, you know. He is ill, and unable to leave his chamber till after the wedding. Let that suffice, my son."
"It will suffice for me, my most sagacious mother," replied Chazeul; "but will it suffice for others?"
"As I will manage it," said Madame de Chazeul. "At all events, it was the only step to be taken, without making him sick indeed; and that I had no time to consider. But it seems that, last night, after all the world were sleeping, but you and I and half-a-dozen others, he thought fit to send my page, Philip, to Chazeul, to bring a book of Hours belonging to the girl Helen from her room, and in my name too.--What is in it I know not; but I shall soon see. I trust, Chazeul, you have not been fool enough to write anything in the book; but if you have, that fire must prove your friend, and conceal your stupidity. The same element has proved serviceable to you before; for never did a green boy at college, put himself more completely in the power of an artful courtesan, than you did, by your pastoral epistles, in the power of Helen de la Tremblade. However, if they can decipher smoke and ashes, they may prove the contract. If not, it is dissolved."