usson, what have you to say to me?"

He--still on his knees--sighed deeply, from profound sorrow, and then
said--

"Oh, Mademoiselle, you whom I so honour and worship, is there no trace
of recollection of me left in your mind?"

She, still looking at him attentively, answered that she had certainly
traced in his face a likeness to some one whom she had held in
affection, and it was to this that he owed it that she had overcome her
profound horror of a murderer so far as to be able to listen to him
quietly. Brusson, much pained by her words, rose quickly, and stepped
backwards a pace, with his gloomy glance fixed on the ground. Then, in
a hollow voice, he said--

"Have you quite forgotten Anne Guiot? Her son, Olivier, the boy whom
you used to dandle on your knee, is he who is now before you."

"Oh! For the love of all the Saints!" she cried, as, covering her face
with both hands, she sank back in her chair. She had reason for being
thus horrified. Anne Guiot, the daughter of a citizen who had fallen
into poverty, had lived with Mademoiselle Scuderi from her childhood;
she had brought her up like a daughter, with all affection and care.
When she grew up, a handsome, well-conducted young man, named Claude
Brusson, fell in love with her. Being a first-rate workman at his trade
of a watchmaker, sure to make a capital living in Paris, and Anne being
very fond of him, Mademoiselle Scuderi saw no reason to object to their
marrying. They set up house accordingly, lived a most quiet and happy
domestic life, and the bond between them was knitted more closely still
by the birth of a most beautiful boy, the image of his pretty mother.

Mademoiselle Scuderi made an idol of little Olivier, whom she would
take away from his mother for hours and days, to pet him and kiss him.
Hence he attached himself to her, and was as pleased to be with her as
with his mother. When three years passed, the depressed state of
Brusson's trade brought it about that job-work was scarcer every day,
so that at last it was all he could do to get bread to eat. In addition
to this came home-sickness for his beautiful native Geneva; so the
little household went there, spite of Mademoiselle Scuderi's
dissuasions and promises of all needful assistance. Anne wrote once or
twice to her foster-mother, and then ceased; so that Mademoiselle
Scuderi thought she was forgotten in the happiness of the Brusson's
life.

It was now just three and twenty years since th