They looked at the miller in astonishment. It was but seldom that he served himself with words so strong.
"A cousin of yours, my little lady," he added, looking at Claire.
"Raphael Llorient!" cried the remaining two brothers; "is he then home again?"
"Aye, indeed he is!" said a voice from the doorway. The figure they saw there was that of a man clad in black velvet, fitting his slender, almost girlish figure like a glove. Only a single decoration, but that the order of the Golden Fleece, hung at his neck from a red ribbon. He was lithe and apparently young, but Claire could not see his face clearly. He remained obstinately against the light, but she could see the points of a slender moustache, and distinguish that the young man's eyebrows met in a thick black bar on his forehead.
"Don Raphael," said the Mayor of Collioure, "you are welcome to this your house. This is my brother Anatole, Professor of Eloquence at the Sorbonne——"
"Ah, the Parisian!" said the young man, bowing slightly; "so you have killed King Guise after crowning him? We in Madrid ever thought him a man of straw for all his strutting and cock-crowing. He would have none of our great King Philip's advice. And so—and so—they used him for firewood in the guard-room at Blois! Well, every dog has his day. And who may this be—I ask as lord of the manor and feudal superior, while warming myself by your fire as a friend—this pretty maid with the downcast eyes?"
"I believe," said the Professor gravely, "that the lady is your own cousin-german. Her name is Claire Agnew, and that of her mother was Colette Llorient of Collioure."