--"

"Since you will have it so, sir, I must be the one to leave," said the
marshal, making a step towards the door.

These words were said in such a manner, that Dagobert could no longer
resist. He hung his head in despair, looked for a moment in silent
supplication at the marshal, and then, as the latter seemed yielding to
a new movement of rage, the soldier slowly quitted the room.

A few minutes had scarcely elapsed since the departure of Dagobert, when
the marshal, who, after a long and gloomy silence, had repeatedly drawn
near the door of his daughters' apartment with a mixture of hesitation
and anguish, suddenly made a violent effort, wiped the cold sweat from
his brow, and entered the chamber in which Rose and Blanche had taken
refuge.

CHAPTER XLIX. THE TEST.

Dagobert was right in defending his children, as he paternally called
Rose and Blanche, and yet the apprehensions of the marshal with regard
to the coldness of his daughters, were unfortunately justified by
appearances. As he had told his father, unable to explain the sad,
and almost trembling embarrassment, which his daughters felt in his
presence, he sought in vain for the cause of what he termed their
indifference. Now reproaching himself bitterly for not concealing from
them his grief at the death of their mother, he feared he might have
given them to understand that they would be unable to console him; now
supposing that he had not shown himself sufficiently tender, and that
had chilled them with his military sternness; and now repeating with
bitter regret, that, having always lived away from them, he must be
always a stranger to them. In a word, the most unlikely suppositions
presented themselves by turns to his mind, and whenever such seeds of
doubt, suspicion, or fear, are blended with a warm affection, they
will sooner or later develop themselves with fatal effect. Yet,
notwithstanding this fancied coldness, from which he suffered so much,
the affection of the marshal for his daughters was so true and deep,
that the thought of again quitting them caused the hesitations which
were the torment of his life, and provoked an incessant struggle between
his paternal love and the duty he held most sacred.

The injurious calumnies, which had been so skillfully propagated, that
men of honor, like his old brothers in arms, were found to attach
some credit to them, had been spread with frightful pertinacity by the
friends of the Princess de Sain