“And I must renounce all this!” he exclaimed, at last.

These words explained everything.

“No, never!” he resumed, in a transport of rage; “never! never!  I cannot!  I will not!”

Now Marie-Anne understood it all.  But what was passing in her father’s mind?  She wished to know; and, leaving the low chair in which she had been seated, she went to her father’s side.

“Are you ill, father?” she asked, in her sweet voice; “what is the matter?  What do you fear?  Why do you not confide in me?—­Am I not your daughter?  Do you no longer love me?”

At the sound of this dear voice, M. Lacheneur trembled like a sleeper suddenly aroused from the terrors of a nightmare, and he cast an indescribable glance upon his daughter.

“Did you not hear what Chupin said to me?” he replied, slowly.  “The Duc de Sairmeuse is at Montaignac; he will soon be here; and we are dwelling in the chateau of his fathers, and his domain has become ours!”

The vexed question regarding the national lands, which agitated France for thirty years, Marie understood, for she had heard it discussed a thousand times.

“Ah, well, dear father,” said she, “what does that matter, even if we do hold the property?  You have bought it and paid for it, have you not?  So it is rightfully and lawfully ours.”

M. Lacheneur hesitated a moment before replying.

But his secret suffocated him.  He was in one of those crises in which a man, however strong he may be, totters and seeks some support, however fragile.

“You would be right, my daughter,” he murmured, with drooping head, “if the money that I gave in exchange for Sairmeuse had really belonged to me.”

At this strange avowal the young girl turned pale and recoiled a step.

“What?” she faltered; “this gold was not yours, my father?  To whom did it belong?  From whence did it come?”

The unhappy man had gone too far to retract.

“I will tell you all, my daughter,” he replied, “and you shall judge.  You shall decide.  When the Sairmeuse family fled from France, I had only my hands to depend upon, and as it was almost impossible to obtain work, I wondered if starvation were not near at hand.

“Such was my condition when someone came after me one evening to tell me that Mademoiselle Armande de Sairmeuse, my godmother, was dying, and wished to speak with me.  I ran to the chateau.

“The messenger had told the truth.  Mademoiselle Armande was sick unto death.  I felt this on seeing her upon her bed, whiter than wax.

“Ah! if I were to live a hundred years, never should I forget her face as it looked at that moment.  It was expressive of a strength of will and an energy that would hold death at bay until the task upon which she had determined was performed.

“When I entered the room I saw a look of relief appear upon her countenance.

“‘How long you were in coming!’ she murmured faintly.