ew recognized you."

"God was merciful to me! My mother did not live to know my shame. Her
death would have been doubly terrible.... And now, monster, deliver me
of your presence and of life. I am in a hurry to die!"

"Have patience! I have prepared for you a refined punishment, and a
prolonged agony."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MIRACLE OF ST. LOUP'S TEETH.

On the morning of the fateful day when the abbess Meroflede drowned, as
in a mouse-trap, the troop of Frankish warriors that had presumed to
dispossess her, the goldsmith Bonaik entered his workshop at the
accustomed hour. He was soon joined by his slave apprentices. After
lighting the fire in the forge, the old man opened the window that
looked over the fosse, to let the smoke escape. With no little
astonishment Bonaik observed that the water in the moat had risen so
high as to be within a foot of the window sill. "Oh, my lads," said he
to the apprentices, "I fear some great calamity happened last night! For
very many years the water of this moat did not reach the height of
to-day, and then it happened when the dike of the upper lake broke, and
caused widespread disasters. Look yonder at the other end of the moat.
The water is almost up to the air-hole cut into the cavern under the
building opposite us."

"And it looks as if the water were still rising, Father Bonaik."

"Alack, yes, my lad! It is still rising. Oh, the bursting of the dikes
will bring on great calamities. There will be many victims!"

While Bonaik and his apprentices were looking at the rising water in the
moat, the voice of Septimine was heard calling on the outside: "Father
Bonaik, open the door of the workshop!" One of the apprentices ran to
the door and the girl entered, supporting a woman whose long hair
streamed with water; her clothes were drenched, her face livid; she was
barely able to drag herself along; so weak was she that after taking a
few steps in the shop she fell fainting in the arms of the old goldsmith
and Septimine.

"Poor woman! She is cold as ice!" exclaimed the old man, and turning to
his apprentices: "Quick, quick boys! Fetch some coal from the vault, ply
the bellows and raise the fire in the forge to warm up this unfortunate
woman. I thought so! This inundation must have caused much damage."

At the words of the goldsmith, two apprentices ran down into the vault
behind the forge for charcoal, and the other blew upon the fire, while
the old man approached Septimi