"Do with 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