pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. They were seated in the drawing-room of an ancient chateau in Brittany, - the Countess Dowager de Gramont and Count Tristan, her only son, - a mansion lacking none of the ponderous quaintness that usually characterizes ancestral dwellings in that locality. The edifice could still boast of imposing grandeur, especially if classed among fine ruins. Within and without were harmoniously dilapidated, and a large portion of the interior was uninhabitable. The limited resources of the count precluded even an apologetic semblance of repairs.