“That is true,” he cried.  “Take me to my child.”

“Not just now, Maurice; wait a little.”

“Where is it?  Tell me where it is.”

“I cannot; I do not know.”

An expression of unspeakable anguish stole over the face of Maurice, and in a husky voice he said: 

“What! you do not know!  Did she not confide in you?”

“No.  I suspected her secret.  I alone——­”

“You, alone!  Then the child is dead, perhaps.  Even if it is living, who can tell me where it is?”

“We shall undoubtedly find something that will give us a clew.”

“You are right,” faltered the wretched man.  “When Marie-Anne knew that her life was in danger, she would not have forgotten her child.  Those who cared for her in her last moments must have received some message for me.  I wish to see those who watched over her.  Who were they?”

The priest averted his face.

“I asked you who was with her when she died,” repeated Maurice, in a sort of frenzy.

And, as the abbe remained silent, a terrible light dawned on the mind of the stricken man.  He understood the cause of Marie-Anne’s distorted features now.

“She perished the victim of a crime!” he exclaimed.

“Some monster has killed her.  If she died such a death, our child is lost forever!  And it was I who recommended, who commanded the greatest precautions!  Ah! it is a curse upon me!”

He sank back in his chair, overwhelmed with sorrow and remorse, and silent tears rolled slowly down his cheeks.

“He is saved!” thought the abbe, whose heart bled at the sight of such despair.  Suddenly someone plucked him by the sleeve.

It was Jean Lacheneur, and he drew the priest into the embrasure of a window.

“What is this about a child?” he asked, harshly.

A flood of crimson suffused the brow of the priest.

“You have heard,” he responded, laconically.

“Am I to understand that Marie-Anne was the mistress of Maurice, and that she had a child by him?  Is this true?  I will not—­I cannot believe it!  She, whom I revered as a saint!  Did her pure forehead and her chaste looks lie?  And he—­Maurice—­he whom I loved as a brother!  So, his friendship was only a mask assumed to enable him to steal our honor!”

He hissed these words through his set teeth in such low tones that Maurice, absorbed in his agony of grief, did not overhear him.

“But how did she conceal her shame?” he continued.  “No one suspected it—­absolutely no one.  And what has she done with her child?  Appalled by a dread of disgrace, did she commit the crime committed by so many other ruined and forsaken women?  Did she murder her own child?”

A hideous smile curved his thin lips.

“If the child is alive,” he added, “I will find it, and Maurice shall be punished for his perfidy as he deserves.”  He paused; the sound of horses’ hoofs upon the road attracted his attention, and that of Abbe Midon.