me what you will--but do not ask what
is become of the children--I cannot answer you."

If a thunderbolt had fallen at the feet of the soldier, he would not have
been more violently, more deeply moved; he became deadly pale; his bald
forehead was covered with cold sweat; with fixed and staring look, he
remained for some moments motionless, mute, and petrified. Then, as if
roused with a start from this momentary torpor, and filled with a
terrific energy, he seized his wife by the shoulders, lifted her like a
feather, placed her on her feet before him, and, leaning over her,
exclaimed in a tone of mingled fury and despair: "The children!"

"Mercy! mercy!" gasped Frances, in a faint voice.

"Where are the children?" repeated Dagobert, as he shook with his
powerful hands that poor frail body, and added in a voice of thunder:
"Will you answer? the children!"

"Kill me, or forgive me, I cannot answer you," replied the unhappy woman,
with that inflexible, yet mild obstinacy, peculiar to timid characters,
when they act from convictions of doing right.

"Wretch!" cried the soldier; wild with rage, grief, despair, he lifted up
his wife as if he would have dashed her upon the floor--but he was too
brave a man to commit such cowardly cruelty, and, after that first burst
of involuntary fury, he let her go.

Overpowered, Frances sank upon her knees, clasped her hands, and, by the
faint motion of her lips, it was clear that she was praying. Dagobert had
then a moment of stunning giddiness; his thoughts wandered; what had just
happened was so sudden, so incomprehensible that it required some minutes
to convince himself that his wife (that angel of goodness, whose life had
been one course of heroic self-devotion, and who knew what the daughters
of Marshal Simon were to him) should say to him: "Do not ask me about
them--I cannot answer you."

The firmest, the strongest mind would have been shaken by this
inexplicable fact. But, when the soldier had a little recovered himself,
he began to look coolly at the circumstances, and reasoned thus sensibly
with himself: "My wife alone can explain to me this inconceivable
mystery--I do not mean either to beat or kill her--let us try every
possibly method, therefore, to induce her to speak, and above all, let me
try to control myself."

He took a chair, handed another to his wife, who was still on her knees,
and said to her: "Sit down." With an air of the utmost dejection, Frances
obeyed.