where yearling
colts frisked gayly. The factory had disappeared, and the chateau had
been restored to its original appearance. The walls enclosing the park
had been rebuilt, and even several cleared places indicated the sites of
cottages that had been pulled down.

Henri de Prerolles could hardly believe his eyes! Was he the sport of a
dream or of one of those mirages which rise before men who travel across
the sandy African deserts? The latitude and the position of the sun
forbade this interpretation. But whence came it, then? What fairy had
turned a magic ring in order to work this miracle?

A crackling of dry twigs under a light tread made him turn, and he
beheld Zibeline, who had come up behind him.

The fairy was there, pale and trembling, like a criminal awaiting
arrest.

"Is it you who have done this?" Henri exclaimed, with a sob which no
human strength could have controlled.

"It is I!" she murmured, lowering her eyes. "I did it in the hope that
some day you would take back that which rightfully belongs to you."

"Rightfully, you say? By what act?"

"An act of restitution."

"You never have done me any injury, and nothing authorizes me to accept
such a gift from Mademoiselle de Vermont."

"Vermont was the family name of my mother. When my father married
her, he obtained leave to add it to his own. I am the daughter of Paul
Landry."

"You!"

"Yes. The daughter of Paul Landry, whose fortune had no other origin
than the large sum of which he despoiled you."

Henri made a gesture of denial.

"Pardon me!" Zibeline continued. "He was doubly your debtor, since this
sum had been increased tenfold when you rescued him from the Mexicans
who were about to shoot him. 'This is my revenge!' you said to him,
without waiting to hear a word from him. Your ruin was the remorse
of his whole life. I knew it only when he lay upon his deathbed.
Otherwise--"

She paused, then raised her head higher to finish her words.

"Never mind!" she went on. "That which he dared not do while living, I
set myself to do after his death. When I came to Paris to inquire what
had become of the Marquis de Prerolles, your glorious career answered
for you; but even before I knew you I had become the possessor of these
divided estates, which, reunited by me, must be restored to your hands.
You are proud, Henri," she added, with animation, "but I am none less
proud than you. Judge, then, what I have suffered in realizing our
situation