The coming of two beautiful, young women thus suddenly into his life--which had been hitherto so isolated, sad and dreary, entirely devoid of all the usual pursuits and pleasures of youth--could not fail to rouse him from his habitual apathy, and set his pulses beating after a new fashion.

Incredible as it may seem yet it was quite true that our young hero had never had a single love affair.

He was too proud, as we have already said, to take his rightful place among his equals, without any of the appurtenances suitable to his rank, and also too proud to associate familiarly with the surrounding peasantry, who accorded him as much respect in his poverty as they had ever shown to his ancestors in their prosperity.

He had no near relatives to come to his assistance, and so lived on, neglected and forgotten, in his crumbling chateau, with nothing to look forward to or hope for.

In the course of his solitary wanderings he had several times chanced to encounter the young and beautiful Yolande de Foix, following the hounds on her snow-white palfrey, in company with her father and a number of the young noblemen of the neighbourhood.