Camors tried to be contented, but would continually ask himself why he had come to Campvallon, in the midst of his family, of whom he was not overfond, and in the depths of the country, which he execrated.

Luckily, the castle boasted a library well stocked with works on civil and international law, jurisprudence, and political economy.

He took advantage of it; and, resuming the thread of those serious studies which had been broken off during his period of hopelessness, plunged into those recondite themes that pleased his active intelligence and his awakened ambition.

Thus he waited patiently until politeness would permit him to bring to an explanation the former friend and companion-in-arms of his father.

In the morning he rode on horseback; gave a lesson in fencing to his cousin Sigismund, the son of Madame de la Roche-Jugan; then shut himself up in the library until the evening, which he passed at bezique with the General.