after entered the little cell, and the nuns, who were
chanting around her bed, retired at his approach.

"I retreated unobserved, to a corner of the room, fearing she would not
live through the last confession of her blameless life. A dim lamp, from
which she was carefully screened, shed a sickly gleam around the
apartment; and, even in the deep silence of that awful hour, the low
and labored whispers of her voice scarcely reached my ear. Suddenly I
was startled by a suppressed, but fervent exclamation from the monk,
instantly followed by a faint cry from your mother's lips. I flew to the
bed; she had raised herself from the pillow, her arms were extended, as
in the act of supplication, and a celestial glow irradiated her dying
features. The priest stood in an attitude of eager attention: his cowl
was removed; and, judge of my sensations, when I recognized the
countenance of De Courcy!"

"My father!" exclaimed Lucie; "that priest"--

"Wait, and you shall know all;" interrupted Madame de la Tour. "That
priest was indeed your father; he had taken the vows of a rigid order,
and Providence guided him to the death-bed of your mother. I pass over
the scene which followed; it is too hallowed for description. Suffice it
to say, the solemn confession of that dreadful moment convinced him of
her innocence, and her last sufferings were soothed by mutual
reconciliation and forgiveness. Your father closed her eyes in their
last sleep, and pressing you for an instant to his heart, rushed almost
frantic from the convent.

"On the following day, my father sought De Courcy at the monastery,
hoping to draw him back to the world by the touching claims of parental
love. But he had already left it, never to return; and the superior had
sworn to conceal his new abode from every human being. Before leaving
the convent, on the night of your mother's death, he confirmed her
bequest, which had already given you to my eldest sister, then a rigid
Catholic. But my father soon after became a convert to the opinions of
the Hugonots, to which we also inclined; and my sister's marriage with
M. Rossville confirmed her in those sentiments. She thought proper to
educate you in a faith which she had adopted from deliberate conviction;
and, as your father had renounced his claims, she of course felt
responsible only to her own conscience. Every effort to find him,
indeed, continued unavailing; years passed away, and by all who had
known him he was numb