and true women, turn with contempt. I
renounce you! Publicly, in the presence of
those gentlemen, I say it—I have no son."

She turned her back on him; and bowing
to the other persons in the room, with the
old formal courtesy of byegone times, walked
slowly and steadily to the door. Stopping
there, she looked back; and the artificial
courage of the moment failed her. With a
faint, suppressed cry she clutched at the hand
of the old servant, who still kept faithfully
at her side; he caught her in his arms, and her
head sank on his shoulder.

"Help him!" cried the general to the
servants near the door. " Help him to take
her into the next room!"

The old man looked up suspiciously from
his mistress to the persons who were assisting
him to support her. "With a strange,
sudden jealousy he shook his hand at them.
"Home," he cried, "she shall go home, and I
will take care of her. Away! you there—
nobody holds her head but Dubois.
Down-stairs! down-stairs, to her carriage! She
has nobody but me now; and I say that she
shall be taken home."

As the door closed, General Berthelin
approached Trudaine, who had stood silent and
apart from the time when Lomaque first
appeared in the drawing-room.

"I wish to ask your pardon," said the old
soldier; "because I have wronged you by
a moment of unjust suspicion. For my
daughter's sake, I bitterly regret that we
did not see each other long ago; but I thank
you, nevertheless, for coming here, even at
the eleventh hour."

While he was speaking, one of his friends
came up, and touching him on the shoulder,
said:

"Berthelin, is that scoundrel to be allowed
to go?"

The general turned on his heel directly,
and beckoned contemptuously to Danville to
follow him to the door. When they were
well out of earshot, he spoke these words:

"You have been exposed as a villain by
your brother-in-law, and renounced as a liar
by your mother. They have done their duty
by you; and now it only remains for me to
do mine. When a man enters the house of
another under false pretences, and compromises
the reputation of his daughter, we old
army men have a very expeditious way of
making him answer for it. It is just three
o'clock now; at five you will find me and one
of my friends—"

He stopped, and looked round cautiously—
then whispered the rest in Danville's ear—
threw open the door, and pointed down-
stairs.

"Our work here is done," said Lomaque,
laying his hand on Trudaine's arm. "Let us
give Danville time to get clear of the house,
and then leave it too."

"My sister! where is she?" asked
Trudaine, eagerly.

"Make your mind easy about her. I will
tell you more when we get out."

"You will excuse me, I know," said
General Berthelin, speaking to all the persons
present, with his hand on the library door,
"if I leave you. I have bad news to break to
my daughter, and private business after that
to settle With a friend."

He saluted the company, with his usual
bluff nod of the head, and entered the library.
A few minutes afterwards, Trudaine and
Lomaque left the house.

"You will find your sister waiting for you
in our apartment at the hotel," said the latter.
"She knows nothing, absolutely nothing, of
what has passed."

"But the recognition?" asked Trudaine,
amazedly. "His mother saw her. Surely
she—?"

"I managed it so that she should be seen,
and should not see. Our former experience
of Danville suggested to me the propriety of
making the experiment, and my old police-
office practice came in useful in carrying it
out. I saw the carriage standing at the door,
and waited till the old lady came down. I
walked your sister away, as she got in, and
walked her back again past the window, as the
carriage drove off. A moment did it; and it
turned out as useful as I thought it would.
Enough of that! Go back now to your sister.
Keep in-doors till the night-mail starts for
Rouen. I have had two places taken for you
on speculation. Go! resume possession of
your old house, and leave me here to transact
the business which my employer has
entrusted to me, and to see how matters end
with Danville and his mother. I will make
time somehow to come and bid you good-bye
at Rouen, though it should only be for a
single day. Bah! no thanks. Give us your
hand. I was ashamed to take it eight years
ago—I can give it a hearty shake now!
There is your way; here is mine. Leave me
to my business in silks and satins; and go
you back to your sister, and help her to pack
up for the night-mail."

Three more days have passed. It is evening.
Rose, Trudaine, and Lomaque are seated
together on the bench that overlooks the
windings of the Seine. The old familiar scene
spreads before them, beautiful as ever—
unchanged, as if it was but yesterday since they
had all looked on it for the last time.

They talk together seriously and in low
voices. The same recollections fill their
hearts recollections which they refrain from
acknowledging, but the influence of which
each knows by instinct that the other
partakes. Sometimes one leads the conversation,
sometimes another; but whoever speaks, the
topic chosen is always, as if by common
consent, a topic connected with the future.

The evening darkens in, and Rose is the
first to rise from the bench. A secret look