e. You say she believes him dead?'

'The Illustrissimo must remember that she never dropped her disguise
with me, but I fully think that she supposed herself a widow. And I
understand the Eccellenza, she is still to think so. I may be depended
on.'

'You understand,' repeated the Chevalier, 'this sum shall reward you
when you have informed me where to find her--as a man like you can
easily trace her from Montauban. If you have any traffickings with her,
it shall be made worth your while to secure the pearls for the family;
but, remember, the first object is herself, and that she should be
ignorant of the existence of him whom she fancied her husband.'

'I see, Signor; and not a word, of course, of my having come from you. I
will discover her, and leave her noble family to deal with her. Has the
Illustrissimo any further commands?'

'None,' began the Chevalier; then, suddenly, 'This unhappy infant--is it
healthy? Did it need any of your treatment?'

'Signor, no. It was a fair, healthy bambina of a year old, and I heard
the mother boasting that it had never had a day's illness.'

'Ah, the less a child has to do in the world, the more is it bent
on living,' said the Chevalier with a sigh; and then, with a parting
greeting, he dismissed the Italian, but only to sup under the careful
surveillance of the steward, and then to be conveyed by early morning
light beyond the territory where the affairs of Ribaumont were
interesting.

But the Chevalier went through a sleepless night. Long did he pace up
and down his chamber, grind his teeth, clench his fist and point them at
his head, and make gestures of tearing his thin gray locks; and many a
military oath did he swear under his breath as he thought to what a
pass things had come. His brother's daughter waiting on an old Huguenot
_bourgeois_, making sugar-cakes, selling her hair! And what next? Here
was she alive after all, alive and disgracing herself; alive--yes, both
she and her husband--to perplex the Chevalier, and force him either to
new crimes or to beggar his son! 