n
her embroidery; her fingers refused their service.

At last, at ten minutes past nine, the telegraph man appeared, as
impassive as ever.

This time it was Henrietta who had taken the despatch; and, before
opening it, she had half a minute's fearful suspense, as if the paper
had contained the secret of her fate. Then, by a sudden impulse, tearing
the envelope, she read, almost at a glance,--

Marseilles, 6.45 p.m.

I have seen Champcey. All well; devoted to Henrietta. Return this
evening. Will be in Paris tomorrow evening at seven o'clock. Prepare
your trunks as if you were to start on a month's journey immediately
after my return. All is going well.

Pale as death, and trembling like a leaf, but with open lips and bright
eyes, Henrietta had sunk into a chair. Up to this moment she had doubted
every thing. Up to this hour, until she held the proof in her hand, she
had not allowed herself to hope. Such great happiness does not seem to
the unhappy to be intended for them. But now she stammered out,--

"Daniel is in France! Daniel! Nothing more to fear; the future is ours.
I am safe now."

But people do not die of joy; and, when she had recovered her
equanimity, Henrietta understood how cruel she had been in the
incoherent phrases that had escaped her in her excitement. She rose with
a start, and, seizing Mrs. Bertolle's hands, said to her,--

"Great God! what am I saying! Ah, you will pardon me, madam, I am sure;
but I feel as if I did not know what I am doing. Safe! I owe it to you
and your brother, if I am safe. Without you Daniel would find nothing
of me but a cross at the cemetery, and a name stained and destroyed by
infamous calumnies."

The old lady did not hear a word. She had picked up the despatch, had
read it; and, overcome by its contents, had sat down near the fireplace,
utterly insensible to the outside world. The most fearful hatred
convulsed her ordinarily calm and gentle features; and pale, with closed
teeth, and in a hoarse voice, she said over and over again,--

"We shall be avenged."

Most assuredly Henrietta did not find out only now that the old dealer
and his sister hated her enemies, Sarah Brandon and Maxime de Brevan,
mortally; but she had never seen that hatred break out so terribly as
to-night. What had brought it about? This she could not fathom. Papa
Ravinet, it was evident, was not a nobody. Ill-bred and coarse in
Water Street, amid the thousand articles of his trade, he bec