with the pale brow and agitated air
of the young soldier, at the first glance of her eye.

"Thou hast permitted this unexpected blow to affect thee unusually,
Sigismund," she said, smiling, and offering her hand; for she felt that
the circumstances were those in which cold and heartless forms should give
place to feeling and sincerity. "Thy sister is tranquil, if not happy."

"She does not know the worst--she has yet to learn the most cruel part of
the truth. Adelheid; they have found one concealed among the dead of the
bone-house, and are now leading him here as the murderer of poor Jacques
Colis!"

"Another!" said Adelheid, turning pale in alarm "we appear to be
surrounded by assassins!"

"No, it cannot be true! I know my poor father's mildness of disposition
too well; his habitual tenderness to all around him; his horror at the
sight of blood, even for his odious task!"

"Sigismund, thy father!"

The young man groaned. Concealing his face with his hands, he sank into a
seat. The fearful truth, with all its causes and consequences, began to
dawn upon Adelheid. Sinking upon a chair herself, she sat long looking at
the convulsed and working frame of Sigismund in silent horror. It appeared
to her, that Providence, for some great but secret purpose, was disposed
to visit them all with more than a double amount of its anger, and that a
family which had been accursed for so many generations, was about to fill
the measure of its woes. Still her own true heart did not change. On the
contrary, its long-cherished and secret purpose rather grew stronger under
this sudden appeal to its generous and noble properties, and never was the
resolution to devote herself, her life, and all her envied hopes, to the
solace of his unmerited wrongs, so strong and riveted as at that trying
moment.

In a little time Sigismund regained enough self-command to be able to
commence the narrative of what had passed. They then concerted together
the best means to make Christine acquainted with that which it was
absolutely necessary she should now know.

"Tell her the simple truth," added Sigismund, 'it cannot long be
concealed, and it were better that she knew it; but tell her, also, my
firm dependence on our father's innocence. God, for one of those
inscrutable purposes which set human intelligence at defiance, has made
him a common executioner, but the curse has not extended to his nature.
Trust me, dearest Adelheid, a more gentle dove-like