zed him at finding his daughter
in a solitary hut in the company of the young Breton, was soon followed
by an expression of undefinable agony. Presently the cruel doubts
concerning the chastity of his youngest daughter made room for hope when
he noticed the serenity of the slumber of the two children. The Emperor
gathered additional comfort from the precaution that Vortigern had taken
in laying himself athwart the entrance, obedient, no doubt, to a thought
of respectful and chivalrous solicitude.

Thetralde was the first to open her eyes. The glare of the torch fell
upon her face. She half raised her head; still half asleep, carried her
hand to her eyes, and sat up. In a second, seeing her father before her,
she uttered a cry of such sincere joy, her charming features expressed a
happiness so utterly free from all embarrassment, that, bounding to her
father's neck, she was pressed by Charles to his heart with delirious
rapture:

"Oh!" the Emperor exclaimed, "I fear naught, her forehead is free from
shame."

The words of the enraptured father reached the ears of Amael, who had
remained motionless behind the Emperor, whose life was soon in no slight
danger, seeing that, in her first and spontaneous outburst of joy to
fall on her father's neck, Thetralde had struck Vortigern with her feet
as she bounded forward. The young Breton, thus awakened with a start,
his eyes dazzled by the glare of the torch, and his mind still clouded
with sleep, grasped his sword and jumped up. At the sight of the two men
at the entrance of the hut, one of them tightly holding Thetralde in his
arms, the lad imagined that violence was being attempted upon her. He
seized Charles by the throat with one hand and, raising his sword in the
other, cried: "I will kill you!" Immediately, however, recognizing the
father of Thetralde, Vortigern dropped his weapon, rubbed his eyes, and
exclaimed:

"The Emperor of the Franks!"

"Himself, my lad!" replied the Emperor in a cheerful voice, while he
again kissed the forehead and head of his daughter with almost frantic
delight. "The vigor of your clutch proves to me that ill would he have
fared who should have entertained any evil designs against my little
girl!"

"We are your enemies, and still you received my grandfather and myself
with kindness," answered the young Breton ingenuously and without
lowering his eyes before the penetrating looks that Charles shot at him.
"I have watched over your daughter-