“What do you want?  What are you doing there?” he asked his daughter.

“You see, I want to go out.”

“Alone?” laughed the count.  Then he continued harshly, pointing at the concierge,—­

“This man would be instantly dismissed if he allowed you to leave the house alone.  Oh, you need not look at me that way!  Hereafter you will only go out when, and with whom, it pleases me.  And do not hope to escape my watchful observation.  I have foreseen every thing.  The little gate to which you had a key has been nailed up.  And, if ever a man should dare to steal into the garden, the gardeners have orders to shoot him down like a dog, whether it be the man with whom I caught you the other day, or some one else.”

Under this mean and cowardly insult Henrietta staggered; but, immediately collecting herself, she exclaimed,—­

“Great God!  Am I delirious?  Father, are you aware of what you are saying?”

And, as the suppressed laughter of the servants reached her, she added with—­almost convulsive vehemence,—­

“At least, say who the man was with whom I was in the garden, so that all, all may hear his name.  Tell them that it was M. Daniel Champcey,—­he whom my sainted mother had chosen for me among all,—­he whom for long years you have daily received at your house, to whom you have solemnly promised my hand, who was my betrothed, and who would now be my husband, if we had chosen to approve of your unfortunate marriage.  Tell them that it was M. Daniel Champcey, whom you had sent off the day before, and whom a crime, a forgery committed by your Sarah, forced to go to sea; for he had to be put out of the way at any hazard.  As long as he was in Paris, you would never have dared treat me as I am treated.”

Overcome by this unexpected violence, the count could only stammer out a few incoherent words.  Henrietta was about to go on, when she felt herself taken by the arm, and gently but irresistibly taken up to the house.  It was Sir Thorn, who tried to save her from her own excitement.  She looked at him; a big tear was slowly rolling down the cheek of the impassive gentleman.

Then, when he had led her as far as the staircase, and she had laid hold of the balusters, he said,—­

“Poor girl!”

And went away with rapid steps.

Yes, “poor girl” indeed!

Her resolve was giving way under all these terrible blows; and seized with a kind of vertigo, out of breath, and almost beside herself, she had rushed up the steps, feeling as if she still heard the abominable accusations of her father, and the laughter of the servants.

“O God,” she sobbed, “have pity on me!”

She felt in her heart that she had no hope left now but God, delivered up as she was to pitiless adversaries, sacrificed to the implacable hatred of a stepmother, abandoned by all, and betrayed and openly renounced by her own father.