Eighteen months had passed, and still was the Count de Montgomeri an exile from his country; and so virulent was Catherine against him, so determinately forgetful of Henri’s last words, absolving the count of all intentional evil, whatever might ensue, that even his best friends dared not wish him back. For Idalie, this interval was indeed heavy with anxiety and sorrow, and all the bitter sickness of hope deferred. No doubt of his affection ever entered her heart; she knew him fond and faithful as herself; but there seemed no end, no term to the long, long interval of absence. Her future was bounded by the hour of meeting, and a very void of interest, and hope, and pleasure seemed the space which stretched between. Yet, for her father’s sake, her ever unselfish nature struggled with the stagnating gloom. The court was loathsome to them both, for even the friendship of the young queen could not remove from Idalie the horror which Catherine de Medicis inspired. In the Chateau de Montemar, then, these eighteen months had mostly been passed, and Idalie compelled herself to seek and feel interest in the families of her father’s vassals, and in the many lessons of feudal government and policy which, as the heiress of all his large estates and of his proud, unsullied name, her father delighted to pour into her heart.

One other subject engrossed the Count de Montemar, and of which he spoke so often and so solemnly to his daughter, that his feelings on the subject became hers; it was the wide-spreading over France of the new religion, deemed by all orthodox Catholics as a heresy, which, if not checked, would entirely subvert and destroy their ancient faith, and in consequence bring incalculable mischief to the country, both temporally and spiritually. De Montemar was no bigot, looking only to violent measures for the extermination of this far-spreading evil; but it grieved and affected him in no common degree. He spent hours and hours with his confessor and his daughter in commune on this one engrossing subject; and from the sincere and earnest lessons of the priest, a true and zealous though humble follower of his own church, he became more and more convinced of the truth of the olden creed, and what he deemed the foul and awful apostasy of the new.

Yet no violence of party spirit mingled in these discussions, and therefore it was that Idalie felt the conviction of the truth and beauty of her long-cherished religion sink into her soul like balm. Saddened by her individual sorrow, shrinking in consequence from all the exciting amusements then reigning in France, her fathers favourite subject became equally a resource and comfort to her, thus unconsciously fitting her for the martyr part which she was only too soon called upon to play.

The Count de Montemar had been a soldier from his youth, and was still suffering from the serious wounds received in his last campaign. Within the last three months he had gradually become weaker and weaker, till at length Idalie watched beside the couch, from which she had been told that her beloved and loving parent would never rise again. She had heard it with an agony of sorrow, which it was long ere the kindly sympathy of the benevolent priest and of her cousin Louis could in any degree assuage. Motherless from early childhood, a more than common tie bound her to her father; and so deep was the darkness which those cruel tidings seemed to gather round her, that even love itself succumbed beneath it, and the strange, wild yearning rose, that she, too, might “flee away, and be at rest.”

Unable to endure any longer these sad thoughts, Idalie arose from the seat where she had kept vigil for many weary nights and days, and looked forth upon the night. The moon was at the full, and shed such clear and silvery light around, that even the rugged crags and stunted pines seemed softened into beauty. The vale beneath slumbered in shadow, save where, here and there, a solitary tree stood forth, seemingly bathed in liquid silver. Sweet odours from the flowers of the night lingered on the breeze, and the rippling gush of a streamlet, reflecting every star and ray upon its bosom, was the only sound that broke the silence. The holy calm of Nature touched a responding chord in the heart of the watcher, and even gri............