"What was it to the Baron and Falise?" asked Medallion.

"M'sieu', what do you think? Beaugard had never had an eye for women;
loving his hounds, fighting, quarrelling, doing wild, strong things. So,
all at once, he was face to face with a woman who has the look of love in
her face, who was young, and fine of body--so the Abbe said--and was
walking to marriage at her father's will and against her own, carrying
the Baron's glove in her bosom. What should Beaugard do? But no, ah no,
m'sieu', not as you think, not quite! Wild, with the bit in his teeth,
yes; but at heart-well, here was the one woman for him. He knew it all
in a minute, and he would have her once and for all, and till death
should come their way. And so he said to her, as he raised her, she
drawing back afraid, her heart hungering for him, yet fear in her eyes,
and her fingers trembling as she softly pushed him from her. You see,
she did not know quite what was in his heart. She was the daughter of a
tenant vassal, who had lived in the family of a grand seigneur in her
youth, the friend of his child--that was all, and that was where she got
her manners and her mind.

"She got on her feet and said: 'M'sieu' le Baron, you will let me go--
to my husband. I cannot stay here. Oh, you are great, you are noble,
you would not make me sorry, make me to hate myself--and you! I have
only one thing in the world of any price--you would not steal my
happiness?' He looked at her steadily in the eyes, and said: 'Will it
make you happy to go to Garoche?' She raised her hands and wrung them.
'God knows, God knows, I am his wife,' she said helplessly, 'and he loves
me.' 'And God knows, God knows,' said the Baron, 'it is all a question
of whether one shall feed and two go hungry, or two gather and one have
the stubble! Shall not he stand in the stubble? What has he done to
merit you?