d fallen; for each word she uttered
breathed the most unfeigned horror and disgust at the mode of life to
which she was so fatally condemned. Oh, could you but have known what
delicate thoughts, what noble, high-minded inspirations were betrayed in
her every word and action! How good, how feeling, how innately
charitable was her nature! For it was to relieve a degree of misery even
greater than her own that she exhausted the small sum of money she had
received on quitting her prison, and which, while it lasted, formed her
only defence from the abyss of infamy into which she was afterwards
plunged; for there came a time,--a hideous time, when, without
employment, food, or shelter, some horrible women found her almost
perishing from weakness and want of support. Under pretence of aiding
her, they took her to their guilty haunts, administered intoxicating
drugs, and--and--"

Rodolph could proceed no further. He uttered a distracting cry, and
exclaimed, "And this was my child!"

"May Heaven's punishment be on me for what I have done!" said Sarah,
hiding her face as though she feared to meet the light of day.

"Ay!" exclaimed Rodolph. "And it will assuredly cling to you all your
life, and haunt even your dying pillow; for it is your neglect and
abandonment of all a mother's most sacred duties which have led to all
these horrors. Accursed may you ever be for your double wickedness
towards your unoffending child! For even after I had succeeded in
removing her from the guilt and pollution by which she was surrounded,
and had placed her in a safe and peaceful asylum, you set your vile
accomplices on to tear her thence! My curse be for ever on you! For it
was owing to your causing her to be forcibly carried off which threw her
back into the power of Jacques Ferrand."

As Rodolph pronounced this name he suddenly stopped and shuddered. The
features of the prince assumed an expression of concentrated rage and
hatred impossible to describe; mute and motionless he stood, as though
crushed to the earth by the reflection that the murderer of his child
was still in existence.

Spite of the increasing weakness of Sarah and the agitation caused by
this interview with Rodolph, she was so much struck with his threatening
aspect that she faintly exclaimed:

"In mercy say what fresh idea has taken possession of your mind?"

"No, no," responded Rodolph, as though speaking to himself; "till now I
thought to spare this monster, believing