In vain, with that serious childishness which always accompanies a hopeless search, he took the knapsack by the two ends, and shook it vigorously; nothing came out.  The orphans looked on with uneasiness, not understanding his silence or his movements, for his back was turned to them.  Blanche ventured to say to him in a timid voice:  “What ails you—­you don’t answer us.—­What is it you are looking for in your knapsack?”

Still mute, Dagobert searched his own person, turned out all his pockets—­nothing!—­For the first time in his life, perhaps, his two children, as he called them, had spoken to him without receiving a reply.  Blanche and Rose felt the big tears start into their eyes; thinking that the soldier was angry, they darst not again address him.

“No, no! it is impossible—­no!” said the veteran, pressing his hand to his forehead, and seeking in his memory where he might have put those precious objects, the loss of which he could not yet bring himself to believe.  A sudden beam of joy flashed from his eyes.  He ran to a chair, and took from it the portmanteau of the orphans; it contained a little linen, two black dresses, and a small box of white wood, in which were a silk handkerchief that had belonged to their mother, two locks of her hair, and a black ribbon she had worn round her neck.  The little she possessed had been seized by the Russian government, in pursuance of the confiscation.  Dagobert searched and researched every article—­peeped into all the corners of the portmanteau—­still nothing!

This time, completely worn out, leaning against the table, the strong, energetic man felt himself giving way.  His face was burning, yet bathed in a cold sweat; his knees trembled under him.  It is a common saying, that drowning men will catch at straws; and so it is with the despair that still clings to some shred of hope.  Catching at a last chance—­absurd, insane, impossible—­he turned abruptly towards the orphans, and said to them, without considering the alteration in his voice and features:  “I did not give them to you—­to keep for me?—­speak?”

Instead of answering, Rose and Blanche, terrified at his paleness and the expression of his countenance, uttered a cry.  “Good heavens! what is the matter with you?” murmured Rose.

“Have you got them—­yes, or no?” cried in a voice of thunder the unfortunate, distracted man.  “If you have not—­I’ll take the first knife I meet with, and stick it into my body!”

“Alas!  You are so good:  pardon us if we have done anything to afflict you!  You love us so much, you would not do us any harm.”  The orphans began to weep, as they stretched forth their hands in supplication towards the soldier.

He looked at them with haggard eye, without even seeing them; till, as the delusion passed away, the reality presented itself to his mind with all its terrible consequences.  Then he clasped his hands together, fell on his knees before the bed of the orphans, leaned his forehead upon it, and amid his convulsive sobs—­for the man of iron sobbed like a child—­these broken words were audible:  “Forgive me—­forgive!—­I do not know how it can be!—­Oh! what a misfortune!—­what a misfortune!—­Forgive me!”