She met him at the tavern of the More on his return from an expedition to Mortagne; she cajoled him, made him love her, and then betrayed him.

That fantastic power--the power of beauty over mankind; in fact, the whole story of Marie de Verneuil and the Gars--dazzled Suzanne; she longed to grow up in order to play upon men.

Some months after her hasty departure she passed through her native town with an artist on his way to Brittany.

She wanted to see Fougeres, where the adventure of the Marquis de Montauran culminated, and to stand upon the scene of that picturesque war, the tragedies of which, still so little known, had filled her childish mind.

Besides this, she had a fancy to pass through Alencon so elegantly equipped that no one could recognize her; to put her mother above the reach of necessity, and also to send to poor Athanase, in a delicate manner, a sum of money,--which in our age is to genius what in the middle ages was the charger and the coat of mail that Rebecca conveyed to Ivanhoe.
One month passed away in the strangest uncertainties respecting the marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon.