lowly raised the hand
that was free, and waved him back from her. He stopped in obedience to
the gesture, and endeavored to speak. She waved her hand again, and the
deathly stillness of her face began to grow troubled. Her lips moved a
little--she spoke.

"Oblige me, sir, for the last time, by keeping silence. You and I have
henceforth nothing to say to each other. I am the daughter of a race of
nobles, and the widow of a man of honor. You are a traitor and a false
witness--a thing from which all true men and true women turn with
contempt. I renounce you! Publicly, in the presence of these 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 by-gone times, walked slowly and
steadily to the door. Stopping there, she looked back; and then 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.
Downstairs! downstairs 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 ear-shot,
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 re