art of us in spreading, will not tend to increase
the favour in which your sister-in-law holds you. No doubt the assassin
was retracing his steps when we met him near Forbach, and having heard
of the poor German lady, with her French maid, and her pretty blonde
complexion, he followed her. If madame will still be guided by me--and,
my child, I beg of you still to trust me," said Amante, breaking out of
her respectful formality into the way of talking more natural to those
who had shared and escaped from common dangers--more natural, too, where
the speaker was conscious of a power of protection which the other did
not possess--"we will go on to Frankfort, and lose ourselves, for a
time, at least, in the numbers of people who throng a great town; and
you have told me that Frankfort is a great town. We will still be
husband and wife; we will take a small lodging, and you shall housekeep
and live in-doors. I, as the rougher and the more alert, will continue
my father's trade, and seek work at the tailors' shops."

I could think of no better plan, so we followed this out. In a back
street at Frankfort we found two furnished rooms to let on a sixth
story. The one we entered had no light from day; a dingy lamp swung
perpetually from the ceiling, and from that, or from the open door
leading into the bedroom beyond, came our only light. The bedroom was
more cheerful, but very small. Such as it was, it almost exceeded our
possible means. The money from the sale of my ring was almost exhausted,
and Amante was a stranger in the place, speaking only French, moreover,
and the good Germans were hating the French people right heartily.
However, we succeeded better than our hopes, and even laid by a little
against the time of my confinement. I never stirred abroad, and saw no
one, and Amante's want of knowledge of German kept her in a state of
comparative isolation.

At length my child was born--my poor worse than fatherless child. It
was a girl, as I had prayed for. I had feared lest a boy might have
something of the tiger nature of its father, but a girl seemed all my
own. And yet not all my own, for the faithful Amante's delight and glory
in the babe almost exceeded mine; in outward show it certainly did.

We had not been able to afford any attendance beyond what a neighbouring
sage-femme could give, and she came frequently, bringing in with her
a little store of gossip, and wonderful tales culled out of her own
experience, every t