"Ruined, mademoiselle?"
"Oh, there is plenty of room to live in it decently if they will let us do so," was the answer; "but it is no longer a castle that could defend itself against an enemy. Grass peeps between the stones in its court-yard, and the moss and lichen find rootage in its broken walls. No sentry paces through the day and night, and the corridors give forth an empty sound as one walks along them."
"What a strange place for a prison," said Lucille.
"It is pretty, and for a time will while away your hours, and you can always return to Vayenne. What kind of treatment we are to receive I do not know. There may be deep-dug dungeons which decay has left untouched."
"Ah, now you would try to frighten me, mademoiselle."
"No, I do not think they will put us there," said Christine. "We shall probably be allowed to wander about the château as we will, but you will soon tire of it, child. It is an unlikely place for a prince to come who, passing all others, shall kneel before you."
"You will not let me forget my dream," said the girl, with a flush in her face; "yet, mademoiselle, think, if he came the broken walls could not keep him out, and there would be no challenge from the sentry."
"No, and no other woman to pass before he came and knelt to you. In Passey you will have no rival if the prince should come," Christine returned.
"Yes, mademoiselle, one—you."
Christine laughed, and her thoughts flew back to Vayenne and to Roger Herrick. Full well she knew that her prince had come long ago. It seemed almost as though the strong walls of circumstance and the sentries which keep vigilant watch over the affairs of men had shut him out.