A vast interest was now about to animate her life.  The wires of her cage were broken:  the bolts and bars of the pretty Chalet—­where were they?  Her thoughts took wings.

“Oh, father!” she cried, looking out to the horizon.  “Come back and make us rich and happy.”

The answer which Ernest de La Briere received some five days later will tell the reader more than any elaborate disquisition of ours.

CHAPTER IX

The power of the unseen

To Monsieur de Canalis: 

My friend,—­Suffer me to give you that name,—­you have delighted me; I would not have you other than you are in this letter, the first—­oh, may it not be the last!  Who but a poet could have excused and understood a young girl so delicately?

I wish to speak with the sincerity that dictated the first lines of your letter.  And first, let me say that most fortunately you do not know me.  I can joyfully assure you than I am neither that hideous Mademoiselle Vilquin nor the very noble and withered Mademoiselle d’Herouville who floats between twenty and forty years of age, unable to decide on a satisfactory date.  The Cardinal d’Herouville flourished in the history of the Church at least a century before the cardinal of whom we boast as our only family glory,—­for I take no account of lieutenant-generals, and abbes who write trumpery little verses.

Moreover, I do not live in the magnificent villa Vilquin; there is not in my veins, thank God, the ten-millionth of a drop of that chilly blood which flows behind a counter.  I come on one side from Germany, on the other from the south of France; my mind has a Teutonic love of reverie, my blood the vivacity of Provence.  I am noble on my father’s and on my mother’s side.  On my mother’s I derive from every page of the Almanach de Gotha.  In short, my precautions are well taken.  It is not in any man’s power, nor even in the power of the law, to unmask my incognito.  I shall remain veiled, unknown.

As to my person and as to my “belongings,” as the Normans say, make yourself easy.  I am at least as handsome as the little girl (ignorantly happy) on whom your eyes chanced to light during your visit to Havre; and I do not call myself poverty-stricken, although ten sons of peers may not accompany me on my walks.  I have seen the humiliating comedy of the heiress sought for her millions played on my account.  In short, make no attempt, even on a wager, to reach me.  Alas! though free as air, I am watched and guarded,—­by myself, in the first place, and secondly, by people of nerve and courage who would not hesitate to put a knife in your heart if you tried to penetrate my retreat.  I do not say this to excite your courage or stimulate your curiosity; I believe I have no need of such incentives to interest you and attach you to me.

  I will now reply to the second edition, considerably enlarged, of
  your first sermon.