ved you? Honore's
departure left me so broken down, I was so sick in mind and body that
never have I been able to recall any portion of the circumstances;
perhaps it was because you talked to me of him and appeared to love him.
My God! the long nights I have spent thinking of that time and weeping
until the fountain of my tears was dry! It is dreadful to have done a
thing that one had no wish to do and afterward be unable to explain the
reason of it. And he had forgiven me, he had told me that he would marry
me in spite of all when his time was out, if those hateful Prussians
only let him live. And you think I will return to you. No, never, never!
not if I were to die for it!"

Goliah's face grew dark. She had always been so submissive, and now he
saw she was not to be shaken in her fixed resolve. Notwithstanding his
easy-going nature he was determined he would have her, even if he should
be compelled to use force, now that he was in a position to enforce
his authority, and it was only his inherent prudence, the instinct that
counseled him to patience and diplomacy, that kept him from resorting
to violent measures now. The hard-fisted colossus was averse to bringing
his physical powers into play; he therefore had recourse to another
method for making her listen to reason.

"Very well; since you will have nothing more to do with me I will take
away the child."

"What do you mean?"

Charlot, whose presence had thus far been forgotten by them both, had
remained hanging to his mother's skirts, struggling bravely to keep down
his rising sobs as the altercation waxed more warm. Goliah, leaving his
chair, approached the group.

"You're my boy, aren't you? You're a good little Prussian. Come along
with me."

But before he could lay hands on the child Silvine, all a-quiver with
excitement, had thrown her arms about it and clasped it to her bosom.

"He, a Prussian, never! He's French, was born in France!"

"You say he's French! Look at him, and look at me; he's my very image.
Can you say he resembles you in any one of his features?"

She turned her eyes on the big, strapping lothario, with his curling
hair and beard and his broad, pink face, in which the great blue eyes
gleamed like globes of polished porcelain; and it was only too true, the
little one had the same yellow thatch, the same rounded cheeks, the same
light eyes; every feature of the hated race was reproduced faithfully in
him. A tress of her jet black hair