that you are honest and unfortunate, and it is, therefore, with
regret that I tell you that I am here in the name of the law to
apprehend your daughter."

"All is discovered,--I am lost!" cried Louise, in agony, and throwing
herself into her father's arms.

"What do you say? What do you say?" inquired Morel, stupefied. "You are
mad! What do you mean by lost? Apprehend you! Why apprehend you? Who has
come to apprehend you?"

"I, and in the name of the law;" and the commissary showed his scarf.

"Oh, wretched, wretched girl!" exclaimed Louise, falling on her knees.

"What! in the name of the law?" said the artisan, whose reason, severely
shaken by this fresh blow, began to totter. "Why apprehend my daughter
in the name of the law? I will answer for Louise, I will,--this my
child, my good child, ain't you, Louise? What! apprehend you, when our
good angel has restored you to us to console us for the death of our
poor, dear little Adele? Come, come, this can't be. And then, to speak
respectfully, M. le Commissaire, they apprehend none but the bad, you
know; and my Louise is not bad. So you see, my dear, the good gentleman
is mistaken. My name is Morel, but there are other Morels; you are
Louise, but there are other Louises; so you see, M. le Commissaire,
there is a mistake, certainly some mistake!"

"Unhappily there is no mistake. Louise Morel, take leave of your
father!"

"What! are you going to take my daughter away?" exclaimed the workman,
furious with grief, and advancing towards the magistrate with a menacing
air.

Rodolph seized the lapidary by the arm, and said to him:

"Be calm, and hope for the best; your daughter will be restored to you;
her innocence must be proved; she cannot be guilty."

"Guilty of what? She is not guilty of anything. I will put my hand in
the fire if--" Then, remembering the gold which Louise had brought to
pay the bill with, Morel cried, "But the money--that money you had this
morning, Louise!" And he gave his daughter a terrible look.

Louise understood it.

"I rob!" she exclaimed; and her cheeks suffused with generous
indignation, her tone and gesture, reassured her father.

"I knew it well enough!" he exclaimed. "You see, M. le Commissaire, she
denies it; and I swear to you, that she never told me a lie in her life;
and everybody that knows her will say the same thing as I do. She lie!
Oh, no, she is too proud to do that! And, then, the bill has been paid
by our benefactor.