s there is from me to hear from
you yourself. I have confessed my fault, my sin, and yet, not my sin,
Pauline. Angele is my child, by Artemise Archambault, as you have
always known, but she is more, she is my daughter, legitimately
begotten, in proper wedlock. This you did not know, my poor Pauline.
She is a true Clairville, my sister, a De Clairville, I should say."

Pauline was now entirely overcome with a new emotion, that of intense
surprise and consternation; instantly the consequences of legitimizing
"Angeel" rushed at her. Instead of a low _liaison_ there was marriage;
the child and she were heirs alike; they were relations and should be
friends, and what she had feared to hear timidly broached--some plan to
keep the child near her--would now be insisted upon.

"Oh!" she cried, drawing away, "this is worse than anything I came
prepared to hear! This is the worst, cruellest of all. Far better had
she been nameless, far, far better. Perhaps--ah! yes--now I
understand; he is ill, he wanders, he does not know what he is saying."

"Tell her, Renaud."

"It is all true, mademoiselle. Believe what he says, for he was never
clearer in the head, not often so clear in life and health as now."

At this she broke down completely, sobbing aloud. The priest gently
intervened.

"I cannot allow this, my daughter. You must respect the hour, the
condition of monsieur, the place, the death-bed of a Christian,
mademoiselle!"

Pauline's sudden sharp sobs were all that could be heard. She had
never wept like this in her life before.

"What is it you want me to do? Not take her with me, not have her to
live with me? I could not, Henry, I could not. Even if I could
overcome my horror of her--poor innocent child, for it is not her fault
she is as she is--I have no right to visit her on Edmund when we are
married. Yes, yes--you must see that we shall be separated. Angele
and her mother--oh! it is not possible--yet I must call her so since
you say it, your wife, Henry, the Archambault girl, will live here.
They will be comfortable, and if we do well where we are going, if
Edmund comes into his money----"

Clairville interrupted her.

"It is of him, too, Hawtree, that I would speak. I fear, I fear--he is
not what he should be, to be your husband, my poor Pauline. His
talk--he has told me much of his past, of women, other women.
Pauline--he has loved in many places."

"Yes, but I was the last--and best!" broke