ith the gurgle of the waves so
perfectly that it seemed to rise from the bosom of the waters. That song
was sweeter to the ears of those old men than the tenderest word of love
on the lips of a young girl; it brought religious hope into their souls
like a voice from heaven.

"What is that?" asked the duke.

"The little nightingale is singing," said Bertrand; "all is not lost,
either for him or for us."

"What do you call a nightingale?"

"That is the name we have given to monseigneur's eldest son," replied
Bertrand.

"My son!" cried the old man; "have I a son?--a son to bear my name and
to perpetuate it!"

He rose to his feet and began to walk about the room with steps in turn
precipitate and slow. Then he made an imperious gesture, sending every
one away from him except the priest.

The next morning the duke, leaning on the arm of his old retainer
Bertrand, walked along the shore and among the rocks looking for the son
he had so long hated. He saw him from afar in a recess of the granite
rocks, lying carelessly extended in the sun, his head on a tuft of mossy
grass, his feet gracefully drawn up beneath him. So lying, Etienne was
like a swallow at rest. As soon as the tall old man appeared upon the
beach, the sound of his steps mingling faintly with the voice of the
waves, the young man turned his head, gave the cry of a startled bird,
and disappeared as if into the rock itself, like a mouse darting so
quickly into its hole that we doubt if we have even seen it.

"Hey! tete-Dieu! where has he hid himself?" cried the duke, reaching the
rock beside which his son had been lying.

"He is there," replied Bertrand, pointing to a narrow crevice, the edges
of which had been polished smooth by the repeated assaults of the high
tide.

"Etienne, my beloved son!" called the old man.

The hated child made no reply. For hours the duke entreated, threatened,
implored in turn, receiving no response. Sometimes he was silent, with
his ear at the cleft of the rock, where even his enfeebled hearing could
detect the beating of Etienne's heart, the quick pulsations of which
echoed from the sonorous roof of his rocky hiding-place.

"At least _he_ lives!" said the old man, in a heartrending voice.

Towards the middle of the day, the father, reduced to despair, had
recourse to prayer:--

"Etienne," he said, "my dear Etienne, God has punished me for disowning
you. He has deprived me of your brother. To-day you are my only child