e has got the start of us in spreading, will not tend to
increase the favour in which your sister-in-law holds you. No doubt the
assassin was retracing his steps when we met him near Forbach, and
having heard of the poor German lady, with her French maid, and her
pretty blonde complexion, he followed her. If madame will still be
guided by me--and, my child, I beg of you still to trust me,' said
Amante, breaking out of her respectful formality into the way of
talking more natural to those who had shared and escaped from common
dangers--more natural, too, where the speaker was conscious of a power
of protection which the other did not possess--'we will go on to
Frankfort, and lose ourselves, for a time, at least, in the numbers of
people who throng a great town; and you have told me that Frankfort is
a great town. We will still be husband and wife; we will take a small
lodging, and you shall house-keep and live in-doors. I, as the rougher
and the more alert, will continue my father's trade, and seek work at
the tailors' shops.'

I could think of no better plan, so we followed this out. In a back
street at Frankfort we found two furnished rooms to let on a sixth
story. The one we entered had no light from day; a dingy lamp swung
perpetually from the ceiling, and from that, or from the open door
leading into the bedroom beyond, came our only light. The bedroom was
more cheerful, but very small. Such as it was, it almost exceeded our
possible means. The money from the sale of my ring was almost
exhausted, and Amante was a stranger in the place, speaking only
French, moreover, and the good Germans were hating the French people
right heartily. However, we succeeded better than our hopes, and even
laid by a little against the time of my confinement. I never stirred
abroad, and saw no one, and Amante's want of knowledge of German kept
her in a state of comparative isolation.

At length my child was born--my poor worse than fatherless child. It
was a girl, as I had prayed for. I had feared lest a boy might have
something of the tiger nature of its father, but a girl seemed all my
own. And yet not all my own, for the faithful Amante's delight and
glory in the babe almost exceeded mine; in outward show it certainly
did.

We had not been able to afford any attendance beyond what a
neighbouring sage-femme could give, and she came frequently, bringing
in with her a little store of gossip, and wonderful tales culled out of
her own