cret to her daughter. She came, by command of the
dead, to see Rovere, but as a Sister of Charity, faithful to the name
which she bears. She does not wish to marry; she will never leave the
crippled old soldier who calls her his daughter, and who adores her."

"Oh!" said M. Ginory, remaining mute a moment before this very simple
drama, and in which, in that moment of reflection, he comprehended, he
analyzed, nearly all of the hidden griefs, the secret tears, the stifled
sobs, the stolen kisses. "And that is why you kept silent?" he asked.

"Yes, Monsieur. Oh! but I could not endure the torture any longer, and
not seeing the expected release any nearer, I would have spoken, I would
have spoken to escape that cell, that sense of suffocation, I endured
there. It seemed to me, however, that I owed it to my dead friend not to
reveal his secret to any one, not even to you. I shall never forget
Rovere's joy, when relieved of the burden, by the confidence which he
had reposed in me, he said to me, that now that she who was his
daughter, and was poor, living at Blois only on the pension of a retired
officer to whom she had appointed herself nurse, knowing that she was
not his daughter, this innocent child, who was paying with a life of
devotion for the sins of two guilty ones, would at least have happiness
at last.

"She is young, and the one for whom she cares cannot live always. My
fortune will give her a dowry. And then!"

"It was to me to whom he confided this fortune. He had very little money
with his notary. Erratic and distrustful, Rovere kept his valuables in
his safe, as he kept his books in his library. It seemed that he was a
collector, picking up all kinds of things. Avaricious? No; but he wished
to have about him, under his hand, everything which belonged to him. He
possibly may have wished to give what he had directly to the one to whom
it seemed good to him to give it, and confide it to me in trust.

"I regret not having asked him directly that day what he counted on
doing with his fortune and how he intended enriching his child, whom he
had not the right to recognize. I dared, or, rather, I did not think of
it. I experienced a strong emotion when I saw my friend enfeebled and
almost dying. I had known him so different, so handsome. Oh! those poor,
sad, restless eyes, that lowered voice, as if he feared an enemy was
listening! Illness had quickly, brutally changed that vigorous man,
suddenly old and timorous.