did not offer to lift up her face for him to kiss. And he,
standing there, looking down on her, felt as if his heart would break.
Then, overcome by all that was struggling within his bosom, he
dropped upon one knee beside the child and drew her toward him, she
seeming terrified at his embrace.

"Ah, little one!" he said, "if I tell you how I have longed for this
hour, prayed for it to come, surely you will say some word of greeting
to me. Dorine, do you not know me? Dorine, Dorine!"

For answer, the child, still seeming frightened, drew further away
from him and whispered that she did not know him, that she desired to
go to Aurelie.

"You love her?" he whispered, too, for now his voice seemed to be
failing him--"you love her? You are happy with her? I hoped you would
have come with me----"

"With you!"--and now the tears stood in the child's eyes as she shrank
still further from him--"and leave Aurelie?"

"Why not?" he asked almost fiercely, his despair driving him nearly to
distraction. "Why not? Who is she? What share has she in you? You are
mine, mine, mine! O child, I am your father!" And suddenly overwrought
by his emotions, by the broken hopes he had cherished, the vanishing
of the future to which he had looked forward, he sprang to his feet
and turned to Mademoiselle de Roquemaure. "I see it all," he said;
"understand all. Your brother uttered the truth at last. You stole my
child because she stood in your way; you won her love afterward
because----"

"Stop!" exclaimed Aurelie de Roquemaure, and as she spoke she drew
herself to her full height and confronted him, while the child,
trembling by her side, could not understand why her sister had changed
so. "Stop and hear the truth since you force me to tell it. I stole
your child because in that way alone could her life be saved, her
safety at least be assured. My brother would--God forgive him!--have
hidden her away forever; even then, as I learned afterward, the
bishop's servant had stolen her from the inn in the city and was
hastening to meet him. There was no time to lose; it was that man's
life or hers, and--and--I acted by my mother's orders. Now,
Monseigneur le Duc----"

But he whom she addressed thus had fallen on his knees before her, had
endeavoured to seize her hand, and, failing that, was kissing the hem
of her dress.

"Forgive, forgive, forgive!" he moaned; "I have been blind--blind! Let
me go in peace and offend no more. She is yours, not mi