The sky was cloudless, the scene drowsy with the stillness of an August afternoon.

But his words went home so truly that the sunlit landscape before the eyes added one more horror to the picture he called up before the mind.
The Countess turned white and sick.

"Are you sure ?" she whispered at last.
"Quite sure." "Ah, God!" she cried, "are we never to have peace ?" And turning from the valley, she walked some distance into the grass court, and stood.

After a time, she turned to him; he had followed her doggedly, pace for pace.
"What do you want me to do ?" she cried, despair in her voice.

"What can I do ?" "Were the letters he bears destroyed--" "The letters ?" "Yes, were the letters destroyed," La Tribe answered relentlessly, "he could do nothing! Nothing! Without that authority the magistrates of Angers would not move.