oo,
was ruined by it, and finally her husband. To-day the pension I receive
from the government barely suffices for the actual necessities of my
poor, dear, saintly child. The faculty of tears has left me; I have
suffered tortures. Monsieur, I must be granite not to have died. But
no, God had kept alive the father that the child might have a nurse, a
providence. Her poor mother died of the strain. Ah! you have come, young
man, at a moment when the old tree that never yet has bent feels the
axe--the axe of poverty, sharpened by sorrow--at his roots. Yes, here am
I, who never complain, talking to you of this illness so as to prevent
you from coming to the house; or, if you still persist, to implore you
not to trouble our peace. Monsieur, at this moment my daughter barks
like a dog, day and night."

"Is she insane?" asked Godefroid.

"Her mind is sound; she is a saint," replied the old man. "You will
presently think I am mad when I tell you all. Monsieur, my only child,
my daughter was born of a mother in excellent health. I never in my life
loved but one woman, the one I married. I married the daughter of one of
the bravest colonels of the Imperial guard, Tarlowski, a Pole, formerly
on the staff of the Emperor. The functions that I exercised in my high
position demanded the utmost purity of life and morals; but I have never
had room in my heart for many feelings, and I faithfully loved my wife,
who deserved such love. I am a father in like manner as I was a husband,
and that is telling you all in one word. My daughter never left her
mother; no child has ever lived more chastely, more truly a Christian
life than my dear daughter. She was born more than pretty, she was
born most beautiful; and her husband, a young man of whose morals I was
absolutely sure,--he was the son of a friend of mine, the judge of one
of the Royal courts,--did not in any way contribute to my daughter's
illness."

Godefroid and Monsieur Bernard made an involuntary pause, and looked at
each other.

"Marriage, as you know, sometimes changes a young woman greatly,"
resumed the old man. "The first pregnancy passed well and produced a
son, my grandson, who now lives with us, the last scion of two families.
The second pregnancy was accompanied by such extraordinary symptoms
that the physicians, much astonished, attributed them to the caprice
of phenomena which sometimes manifest themselves in this state, and are
recorded by physicians in the annals of