yet, to judge by the
expression of his countenance, one would think that this stranger had
never either smiled or wept!' She and I watched him from the door as
long as we could follow him with our eyes; he carried his head down, and
his walk was slow, calm, and firm; one might fancy that he counted his
steps. And, talking of steps, I remarked yet another thing."

"What was it, Dagobert?"

"You know that the road which led to our house way, always damp, because
of the overflowing of the little spring."

"Yes."

"Well, then, the mark of the traveller's footsteps remained in the clay,
and I saw that he had nails under his shoe in the form of a cross."

"How in the form of a cross?"

"Look!" said Dagobert, placing the tip of his finger seven times on the
coverlet of the bed; "they were arrange: thus beneath his heel:"

*
* * *
*
*
*

"You see it forms a cross."

"What could it mean, Dagobert?"

"Chance, perhaps--yes, chance--and yet, in spite of myself, this
confounded cross left behind him struck me as a bad omen, for hardly was
he gone when misfortune after misfortune fell upon us."

"Alas! the death of our mother!"

"Yes--but, before that, another piece of ill-luck. You had not yet
returned, and she was writing her petition to ask leave to go to France
or to send you there, when I heard the gallop of a horse. It was a
courier from the governor general of Siberia. He brought us orders to
change our residence; within three days we were to join other condemned
persons, and be removed with them four hundred leagues further north.
Thus, after fifteen years of exile, they redoubled in cruelty towards
your mother."

"Why did they thus torment her?"

"One would think that some evil genius was at work against her. A few
days later, the traveller would no longer have found us at Milosk; and
if he had joined us further on, it would have been too far for the medal
and papers to be of use--since, having set out almost immediately, we
shall hardly arrive in time at Paris. 'If they had some interest to
prevent me and my children from going to France,' said your mother,
'they would act just as they have done. To banish us four hundred
leagues further, is to render impossible this journey, of which the term
is fixed.' And the idea overwhelmed her with grief."

"Perhaps it was this unexpected sorrow that was the cause of her sudden
illness."

"Alas! no, my children;