But tell who you both are."

Caillette, for it was she, laid her finger on her lips and whispered
low:

"She is mad!"

Tears came to the old man's eyes.

"I beg of you," he asked again, "to tell me who this woman is."

"A poor, sick creature, who was once very happy. She has lost her
husband and her children, and met with some terrible accident beside."

"But her name?"

"I have not the smallest idea. Cinette always calls her mamma."

"Cinette! Who bears that name?"

"A good little girl in Paris, who earns her bread by singing in the
streets. It now seems that she is the sister of Fanfar. It is a very
strange sorrow, one fall of sorrow!"

"And Fanfar--whom do you call Fanfar?" asked the old man, with a
troubled face.

Caillette started. She remembered that her love had been disdained, but
she was kind-hearted, of the stuff of which martyrs are made.

"Fanfar was a foundling. He is now a young man both good and handsome."

"Where have I heard that name?" Labarre said to himself.

Suddenly the woman seated in the chair looked up.

"Excuse the simplicity of the arrangements--the inn does as well as
possible."

"Francoise Fougere!" he cried.

Francoise started up, as if sustained by supernatural strength.

"Who calls me?" she cried. "Who is it that speaks my name?"

"Francoise, do you remember Simon, Jacques, Cinette?"

"My children? Yes, yes--I remember them. Where is it that I have just
seen them? Oh! yes--I remember. I was all alone. Cinette's little bed
was empty, and then the door opened and Jacques came!"

"Is he alive?" cried Labarre.

"Yes," answered Caillette. "They knew each other at once."

"But where is Francine?"

"She has been abducted by the Vicomte de Talizac."

"Talizac!"

Labarre caught at a chair for support. Francoise heard these words.

"Talizac! Oh! the base, cruel man. Quick! we cannot stay here. I must
save Francine and Jacques. Oh! my box--where is my box?"

My readers must now learn how Francoise and Caillette found themselves
at Leigoutte. They will remember that just as Fanfar recognized in the
poor, sick woman the mother whose loss he had so deeply deplored, and
in Francine the worshipped little sister whose agonized cries he had
heard in the subterranean passages among the Vosges, all clue was lost,
for Bobichel vanished, and with him Caillette.

And Gudel's daughter, who loved Fanfar with a love that was without
hope, said to him:

"She is your mother. Wi