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The three months over, he retired to his estate at Keragouil, having profoundly stirred all classes of society, given new life to the cause of His Majesty, and regretting only, as a true gentleman, the frightful devastation he had left in the hearts of the ladies.
"Yes, M'sieur," said Francine, who obeyed regretfully, with the new instinct of a housewife. "Now, Madame, as wife and mistress of Keragouil, I think it is well that you understand your position and what I expect of you," said the Comte, waving her to a seat and occupying a fauteuil in magisterial fashion.
This time, to the upsetting of all history, an Englishman on a bicycle trip brought him a newspaper, an article almost unknown to Keragouil, where the shriek of the locomotive had yet to penetrate. A glance at the winners of the first and second prizes reassured him. He drew a breath of satisfaction, saying gratefully; "Ah, what luck! God be praised! I'll never do that again!"
The return of the married couple was the sensation of Keragouil, for the Comte de Bonzag, after the fashion of his ancestors, had placed his bride behind him on the broad back of Quatre Diables, who proceeded with unaltered equanimity.
When he entered the dining-room and went to the sideboard, she took an equal number of steps in the same direction. When, having brought out a bottle and glasses, he turned and came toward her, she retreated. When he stopped, she stopped, and sat down with the same exact movement. "Madame, I offer you a glass of the famous Keragouil Burgundy," began the Comte, filling her glass.
"Our detectives have arrested the burglars. You will be overjoyed to hear that we have recovered your silver in toto!" The Comte de Bonzag, on the ruined esplanade of his Château de Keragouil, frowned into the distant crepuscle of haystack and multiplied hedge, crumpling in his nervous hands two annoying slips of paper.
One hundred and ten thousand francs meant the rehabilitation of the ancient name, the restoration of the Château de Keragouil, half the year at Paris, in the Cercle Royale, in the regions of art, and among the great minds that were still young in the Quartier and all that was in the possession of a plump Gascony peasant, whose ideas of comfort and pleasure were satisfied by one hundred and twenty francs a year.
Ordinarily the news of the lottery arrived by an inspector of roads, who passed through Keragouil a week or so after the announcement in the press; for the Comte, having surrendered his ticket, was only troubled lest he had won.
"What am I going to do?" he cried, rising in an outburst of anger. Then he sat down in despair. There was nothing to do. The fact was obvious that Francine was an heiress, possessed of the greatest fortune in the memory of Keragouil. There was nothing to do, or rather, there was manifestly but one way open, and the Comte resolved on the spot to take it.
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