“In fair fight, father!” protested the child.

“’Tis not fair for a man to kill a boy,” retorted the old man, with furious energy.

“Deroulede is thirty:  my boy was scarce out of his teens:  may the vengeance of God fall upon the murderer!”

Juliette, awed, terrified, was gazing at her father with great, wondering eyes.  He seemed unlike himself.  His face wore a curious expression of ecstasy and of hatred, also of hope and exultation, whenever he looked steadily at her.

That the final glimmer of a tottering reason was fast leaving the poor, aching head she was too young to realise.  Madness was a word that had only a vague meaning for her.  Though she did not understand her father at the present moment, though she was half afraid of him, she would have rejected with scorn and horror any suggestion that he was mad.

Therefore when he took her hand and, drawing her nearer to the bed and to himself, placed it upon her dead brother’s breast, she recoiled at the touch of the inanimate body, so unlike anything she had ever touched before, but she obeyed her father without any question, and listened to his words as to those of a sage.

“Juliette, you are now fourteen, and able to understand what I am going to ask of you.  If I were not chained to this miserable chair, if I were not a hopeless, abject cripple, I would not depute anyone, not even you, my only child, to do that, which God demands that one of us should do.”

He paused a moment, then continued earnestly: 

“Remember, Juliette, that you are of the house of Marny, that you are a Catholic, and that God hears you now.  For you shall swear an oath before Him and me, an oath from which only death can relieve you.  Will you swear, my child?”

“If you wish it, father.”

“You have been to confession lately, Juliette?”

“Yes, father; also to holy communion, yesterday,” replied the child.  “It was the Fete-Dieu, you know.”

“Then you are in a state of grace, my child?”

“I was yesterday morning, father,” replied the young girl naively, “but I have committed some little sins since then.”

“Then make your confession to God in your heart now.  You must be in a state of grace when you speak the oath.”

The child closed her eyes, and as the old man watched her, he could see the lips framing the words of her spiritual confession.

Juliette made the sign of the cross, then opened her eyes and looked at her father.

“I am ready, father,” she said; “I hope God has forgiven me the little sins of yesterday.”

“Will you swear, my child?”

“What, father?”

“That you will avenge your brother’s death on his murderer?”

“But, father...”

“Swear it, my child!”

“How can I fulfil that oath, father?—­I don’t understand...”

“God will guide you, my child.  When you are older you will understand.”