“Pardon, father, pardon!” said Frances, with the resignation of despair.  “Permit me to ask one more question, one only.  Alas! if you do not guide me, how shall I find the way?”

“Speak!”

“When Marshal Simon arrives, he will ask his children of my husband.  What answer can he then give to their father?”

“When Marshal Simon arrives, you will let me know immediately, and then—­I will see what is to be done.  The rights of a father are only sacred in so far as he make use of them for the salvation of his children.  Before and above the father on earth, is the Father in heaven, whom we must first serve.  Reflect upon all this.  By accepting what I propose to you, these young girls will be saved from perdition; they will not be at your charge; they will not partake of your misery; they will be brought up in a sacred institution, as, after all, the daughters of a Marshal of France ought to be—­and, when their father arrives at Paris, if he be found worthy of seeing them again, instead of finding poor, ignorant, half savage heathens, he will behold two girls, pious, modest, and well informed, who, being acceptable with the Almighty, may invoke His mercy for their father, who, it must be owned, has great need of it—­being a man of violence, war, and battle.  Now decide!  Will you, on peril of your soul, sacrifice the welfare of these girls in this world and the next, because of an impious dread of your husband’s anger?”

Though rude and fettered by intolerance, the confessor’s language was (taking his view of the case) reasonable and just, because the honest priest was himself convinced of what he said; a blind instrument of Rodin, ignorant of the end in view, he believed firmly, that, in forcing Frances to place these young girls in a convent, he was performing a pious duty.  Such was, and is, one of the most wonderful resources of the order to which Rodin belonged—­to have for accomplices good and sincere people, who are ignorant of the nature of the plots in which they are the principal actors.

Frances, long accustomed to submit to the influence of her confessor, could find nothing to object to his last words.  She resigned herself to follow his directions, though she trembled to think of the furious anger of Dagobert, when he should no longer find the children that a dying mother had confided to his care.  But, according to the priest’s opinion, the more terrible this anger might appear to her, the more she would show her pious humility by exposing herself to it.

“God’s will be done, father!” said she, in reply to her confessor.  “Whatever may happen, I wilt do my duty as a Christian—­in obedience to your commands.”

“And the Lord will reward you for what you may have to suffer in the accomplishment of this meritorious act.  You promise then, before God, that you will not answer any of your husband’s questions, when he asks you for the daughters of Marshal Simon?”