ow, even
if we were not before."

The old man did not reply, but asked his visitor to sit down, while he,
having hung up his weapon, and drawn a chair to the fire-place, took a
seat beside him. The fire had burned low and both were seated in the
deep shadow. Blanche had offered to light a candle, but the men having
refused by a sign, the child sat down on the other side of the hearth
with the black cat circled on her lap.

"I brought back the child to you," said M. Belmont, by way of opening
the conversation. "She was in good hands with Pauline, her godmother,
but we knew that she never spent a night out of your hermitage, and that
you would be anxious if she did not return."

"Oh, Blanche is like her old grandfather. She knows every path in the
forest, every sign of the heavens, and no weather could prevent her from
finding her home. I have no fear that man or beast would hurt the little
creature. Indeed, she has the mark of Providence upon her and no harm
will come to her so long as my life is spared. There is a spirit in the
waterfall yonder, M. Belmont, which watches over her and the protection
is inviolable. But I thank you, sir, and your daughter for having taken
care of her."

"I kept her for another reason, Batoche," and M. Belmont looked
furtively at his companion, who returned his glance in the same dubious
fashion.

"It gave me the opportunity of paying you a visit which, for special
reasons, is of the greatest importance to me."

Batoche seemed to divine the secret thought of his guest, and put him
immediately at his ease by saying:

"I am a poor solitary being, M. Belmont, severed from all the world, cut
off from the present, living only in the past, and hoping for nothing in
the future except the welfare of this little orphan girl. Nobody cares
for me, and I have cared for nobody, but I am ready to do you any
service in my power. I have learned a secret to-night, and--who
knows?--perhaps life has changed for me during the last hour."

M. Belmont listened attentively to these words. He knew in the presence
of what strange being he was, and that the language which he heard had
perhaps a deeper meaning than appeared upon the surface. But the manner
of Batoche was quiet in its earnestness, his eye had none of its strange
fire, and there was no wild incoherent gesture of his to indicate that
he was speaking outside of his most rational mood. M. Belmont therefore
contented himself with thanking the her