ds, for by this time
Madame Bernstein had risen from her chair and was approaching him.
Browne glanced at her, and his instinct told him what was coming.
Knowing the lady so well, he felt convinced she would not permit such
an opportunity to pass without making the most of it.

"Ah, Monsieur Browne," she began, her voice trembling with emotion and
the ready tear rising in her eye, "you cannot understand how we feel
towards you. Katherine has told me of your act of self-sacrifice. It
is noble of you; it is grand! But Heaven will reward you for your
goodness to an orphan child."

"My dear Madame Bernstein," said Browne, who by this time was covered
with confusion, "you really must not thank me like this. I do not
deserve it. I am not doing much after all; and besides, it is for
Katherine's sake, and that makes the difference. If we succeed, as I
hope and trust we shall, it will be an adventure that we shall remember
all our lives long." He stopped suddenly, remembering that there was a
third person present who might not be in the secret. Being an
ingenuous youth, the thought of his indiscretion caused him to blush
furiously. Katherine, however, was quick to undeceive him.

"You need have no fear," she said; "we are all friends here. Let me
introduce you to Herr Otto Sauber, who, as I told you in my letter, is
an old friend of my father's."

The old man, sitting at the farther end of the room, rose and hobbled
forward to take Browne's hand. He was a strange-looking little fellow.
His face was small and round, his skin was wrinkled into a thousand
furrows, while his hair was snow-white, and fell upon his shoulders in
wavy curls. His age could scarcely have been less than seventy.
Trouble had plainly marked him for her own; and if his threadbare
garments could be taken as any criterion, he was on the verge of actual
poverty. Whatever his nationality may have been, he spoke French,
which was certainly not his mother-tongue, with considerable fluency.

"My dear young friend," he said, as he took Browne's hand, "allow me,
as an old man and a patriot, to thank you for what you are about to do.
I sum up my feelings when I say that it is an action I do not think you
will ever regret." Then, placing his hand on the girl's shoulder, he
continued: "I am, as I understand Katherine has told you, an old friend
of her father's. I remember him first as a strong, high-spirited lad,
who had not a base thought in his natu