But this is a step into the future before the present is done with. There was another rumor in Vayenne which pleased the people. The Duke was to marry before the year was out. The prince, passing all others, had come to kneel at the feet of Lucille. The last of that family so long under a cloud was destined to win back place and power, and to become Duchess of Montvilliers.
It had been known in the city for some time that Roger Herrick was to marry Christine de Liancourt. Titles and honors and wealth had been showered upon Herrick. He was a prince in the land, second only to the Duke. Some, Gaspard Lemasle and Pierre Briant among the number, would not subscribe even to this reservation.
They were married in the great Church of St. Etienne, and the whole city shouted God speed and happiness to them.
"I would they were Duke and Duchess," some whispered on their homeward way; and Gaspard Lemasle drank a deep health to them that night with a like thought in his mind.
And now that the Duke was becoming firmly seated upon his throne, Herrick declared that it would be wise for him and Christine to go away for a little while after their marriage.
"We shall be back for your wedding," he told Maurice, "and my absence will help to strengthen your position. Besides, I want to show Christine what a very unimportant man I really am out of Montvilliers."
So they departed one sunny morning, an escort with them. Herrick had asked in vain to be allowed to go as a private person. At the brow of the hill he stopped the carriage for a moment.
"It was from this spot that I first saw the city of my dreams," he said.
Christine's hand stole into his.
"And now you have awakened in it," she said, "lived in it, ruled it, and——"