, your own Maurice!"

He started, and a deep flush suffused his cheek, and then stretching out
his hand, he pushed back my cap, and parted the hair off my forehead, as
if doubting the reality of what he saw, when, with a weak voice, he
said,

"No, no, thou art not my own Maurice. _His_ eyes shone not with that
worldly lustre thine do; _his_ brow was calm and fair as children's
should be--_thine_ is marked with manhood's craft and subtlety; and yet
thou art like him."

A low sob broke from me as I listened to his words, and the tears gushed
forth, and rolled in torrents down my cheeks.

"Yes," cried he, clasping me in his arms, "thou art my own dear boy. I
know thee now: but how art thou here, and thus?" and he touched my
"blouse" as he spoke.

"I came to see and to save you, Pere," said I. "Nay, do not try to
discourage me, but rather give me all your aid. I saw _her_--I was with
her in her last moments at the guillotine; she gave me a message for
you, but this you shall never hear till we are without these walls."

"It can not be, it can not be," said he, sorrowfully.

"It can, and shall be," said I, resolutely. "I have merely assumed this
dress for the occasion; I have friends, powerful and willing to protect
me. Let us change robes; give me that 'soutane,' and put on the blouse.
When you leave this, hasten to the old garden of the chapel, and wait
for my coming; I will join you there before night."

"It can not be," replied he, again.

"Again I say, it shall, and must be. Nay, if you still refuse, there
shall be two victims, for I will tear off the dress here where I stand,
and openly declare myself the son of the royalist Tiernay."

Already the commotion in the court beneath was beginning to subside, and
even now the turnkeys' voices were heard in the refectory, recalling the
prisoners to table, another moment and it would have been too late; it
was, then, less by persuasion than by actual force I compelled him to
yield, and pulling off his black serge gown, drew over his shoulders my
yellow blouse, and placed upon his head the white cap of the "Marmiton."
The look of shame and sorrow of the poor cure would have betrayed him at
once, if any had given themselves the trouble to look at him.

"And thou, my poor child," said he, as he saw me array myself in his
priestly dress, "what is to be thy fate."

"All will depend upon you, Pere Michel," said I, holding him by the arm,
and trying to fix his wandering