ds at parting:

"I assert that the man went away at his own free will; but if you do not
keep very quiet, I shall deny that he came here at all--you cannot prove
he did--and I will denounce you for harboring a _suspect_ and
_ci-devant_ under a false name. I know a De Senanges when I see him as
well as you, citizen Alix; and, wishing M. Paul a good journey, I hope
you will consider about this matter, for truly, my friend, I think you
will sneeze in the sack before I shall."

* * * * *

"We must bear it, Berthe, my child," said Prosper Alix to his daughter
many weeks later, when the fever had left her, and she was able to talk
with her father of the mysterious and frightful events which had
occurred. "We are utterly helpless. There is no proof, only the word of
these wretches against mine, and certain destruction to me if I speak.
We will go to Spain, and tell the Marquis all the truth, and never
return, if you would rather not. But, for the rest, we must bear it."

"Yes, my father," said Berthe submissively, "I know we must; but God
need not, and I don't believe He will."

The father and the daughter left France unmolested, and Berthe "bore it"
as well as she could. When better times come they returned, Prosper Alix
an old man, and Berthe a stern, silent, handsome woman, with whom no one
associated any notions of love or marriage. But long before their return
the traditions of the Croix Rousse were enriched by circumstances which
led to that before-mentioned capital bargain made by the father of the
Giraudier of the present. These circumstances were the violent death of
Pichon and his two sons, who were killed by the fall of a portion of the
great boundary-wall on the very day of its completion, and the
discovery, close to its foundation, at the extremity of Pichon's
_terre_, of the corpse of a young man attired in a light-colored
riding-coat, who had been stabbed through the heart.

Berthe Alix lived alone in the Chateau de Senanges, under its restored
name, until she was a very old woman. She lived long enough to see the
golden figure on the summit of the "Holy Hill," long enough to forget
the bad old times, but not long enough to forget or cease to mourn the
lover who had kept his promise, and come back to her; the lover who
rested in the earth which once covered the bones of the martyrs, and who
kept a place for her by his side. She has filled that place for many
years. You may se