my child, on the contrary."

"Why, father, you are crying, and yet you see that I am better!"

"I cry!" said Buvat, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. "I, crying!
If I am crying, it is only joy. Yes, I am going, my child--to my
office--I am going."

And Buvat, after having embraced Bathilde, returned home, for he would
not tell his poor child that he had lost his place, and the young girl
was left alone.

Then she breathed more freely now that she was tranquil; Boniface, in
his quality of clerk to the procureur at Chatelet, was in the very place
to know everything, and Bathilde was sure that Boniface would tell her
everything. Indeed, from that time she knew all: that Raoul had been
interrogated, and that he had taken everything on himself; then the day
following she learned that he had been confronted with Laval, Valef, and
Pompadour, but that interview had produced nothing. Faithful to his
promise, Boniface every evening brought her the day's news, and every
evening Bathilde, at this recital, alarming as it was, felt inspired
with new resolution. A fortnight passed thus, at the end of which time
Bathilde began to get up and walk a little about the room, to the great
joy of Buvat, Nanette, and the whole Denis family.

One day Boniface, contrary to his usual habit, returned home from
Joullu's at three o'clock, and entered the room of the sufferer. The
poor boy was so pale and so cast down, that Bathilde understood that he
brought some terrible information, and giving a cry, she rose upright,
with her eyes fixed on him.

"All is finished, then?" asked Bathilde.

"Alas!" answered Boniface, "it is all through his own obstinacy. They
offered him pardon--do you understand, Mademoiselle Bathilde?--his
pardon if he would--and he would not speak a word."

"Then," cried Bathilde, "no more hope; he is condemned."

"This morning, Mademoiselle Bathilde, this morning."

"To death?"

Boniface bowed his head.

"And when is he to be executed?"

"To-morrow morning at eight o'clock."

"Very well," said Bathilde.

"But perhaps there is still hope," said Boniface.

"What?" asked Bathilde.

"If even now he would denounce his accomplices."

The young girl began to laugh, but so strangely that Boniface shuddered
from head to foot.

"Well," said Boniface, "who knows? I, if I was in his place, for
example, should not fail to do so; I should say, 'It was not I, on my
honor it was not I; it was such a one, and such a