“Alas!  I am too late,” said he, “for all the haste I made,” and advancing a few steps he bent over the prostrate girl, and took her lifeless hand in his.  Upon this hand, white, cold and diaphanous, as if it had been sculptured in alabaster, shone a ring, set with an amethyst of unusual size.  The old nobleman seemed strangely agitated as it caught his eye.  He drew it gently from Isabelle’s slender finger, with a trembling hand signed to one of the torch-bearers to bring his light nearer, and by it eagerly examined the device cut upon the stone; first holding it close to the light and then at arm’s length; as those whose eyesight is impaired by age are wont to do.  The Baron de Sigognac, Herode and Lampourde anxiously watched the agitated movements of the prince, and his change of expression, as he contemplated this jewel, which he seemed to recognise; and which he turned and twisted between his fingers, with a pained look in his face, as if some great trouble had befallen him.

“Where is the Duke of Vallombreuse?” he cried at last, in a voice of thunder.  “Where is that monster in human shape, who is unworthy of my race?”

He had recognised, without a possibility of doubt, in this ring, the one bearing a fanciful device, with which he had been accustomed, long ago, to seal the notes he wrote to Cornelia—­Isabelle’s mother, and his own youthful love.  How happened it that this ring was on the finger of the young actress, who had been forcibly and shamefully abducted by Vallombreuse?  From whom could she have received it?  These questions were torturing to him.

“Can it be possible that she is Cornelia’s daughter and mine?” said the prince to himself.  “Her profession, her age, her sweet face, in which I can trace a softened, beautified likeness of her mother’s, but which has a peculiarly high bred, refined expression, worthy of a royal princess, all combine to make me believe it must be so.  Then, alas! alas! it is his own sister that this cursed libertine has so wronged, and he has been guilty of a horrible, horrible crime.  Oh!  I am cruelly punished for my youthful folly and sin.”

Isabelle at length opened her eyes, and her first look fell upon the prince, holding the ring that he had drawn from her finger.  It seemed to her as if she had seen his face before—­but in youth, without the gray hair and beard.  It seemed also to be an aged copy of the portrait over the chimney-piece in her room, and a feeling of profound veneration filled her heart as she gazed at him.  She saw, too, her beloved de Sigognac kneeling beside her, watching her with tenderest devotion; and the worthy tyrant as well—­both safe and sound.  To the horrors of the terrible struggle had succeeded the peace and security of deliverance.  She had nothing more to fear, for her friends or for herself—­how could she ever be thankful enough?

The prince, who had been gazing at her with passionate earnestness, as if her fair face possessed an irresistible charm for him, now addressed her in low, moved tones: