“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 nature does not exist in man than that of the poor Balthazar—­the despised and persecuted Balthazar.  I have heard my mother dwell upon the nights of anguish and suffering that have preceded the day on which the duties of his office were to be discharged; and often have I heard that admirable woman, whose spirit is far more equal to support our unmerited fortunes, declare she has often prayed that he and all that are hers might die, so that they died innocently, rather than one of a temper so gentle and harmless should again be brought to endure the agony she had witnessed!”

“It is unhappy that he should be here at so luckless a moment!  What unhappy motive can have led thy father to this spot, at a time so extra ordinary?”

“Christine will tell thee that she expected to see him at the convent.  We are a race proscribed, Mademoiselle de Willading, but we are human.”