"I hold you responsible for him," the Duke had said to Dupré. "Teach him to hate the books you love and I will find means to thank you; let him become such a one as yourself, and rest assured the reins of government will never fall into his hands when they drop from mine. The good of Montvilliers is far more to me than any son."
The Duke rode away, hoping perhaps that banishment from Vayenne would cure his son, but the lad had been at Passey ever since. How far the old Viscount attempted to turn the boy from his studies, who can say? The fact remained that he did not succeed, and Maurice de Broux--now a youth of eighteen--had found peace and contentment in the crumbling old château and was as little concerned about the world as old Dupré himself.
To-day the quiet life had suddenly been broken in upon. With early dawn a company of horsemen, a woman riding in their midst, had clattered through the village street and in at the château gates. "The Duke is dead," one serving-man presently told another, and the news spread rapidly through the village, and out into the fields beyond, where bent-backed men and women hoed. One old man there looked toward the château, and pulling off a ragged cap cried feebly, "Long live the Duke!"
In a room in the château, a room of books and students' comforts, such a room as could not have been found in the length and breadth of the Castle of Vayenne, Maurice and Mademoiselle de Liancourt had been closeted for hours. There was no more important person in Montvilliers that day than the pale scholar of Passey, yet there was no excitement in his face. That he should mourn for a father who had been little more than a stranger to him was hardly to be expected. From time to time he moved restlessly about the room, letting his companion talk, and now and again her words brought a flush to his cheek. To no one would he have listened as quietly as he did to her, for, scholar though he was by nature, he had yet something of his father in him, a temper that might burst into fury were it pressed too far. No one knew this better than Christine de Liancourt, and if any words of hers would sting him into action she would certainly speak them. For this very purpose had she come in haste to Passey. In old days she had often stood between Maurice and his father's wrath. She had prophesied that when the hour came Maurice would rise to the occasion and make a wise ruler. He was, besides, the heir, nothing could alter that, and justice, coupled with her half-formed fear of Count Felix, drove her to espouse the young Duke's cause with all the strength that was in her.
