"That prisoner isn't a man to be talked of about here. You never heard
_me_ mention him. Laval used to give a--a--bad account of him. He had
to be kept alive."

"Till he heard your music, papa, and was moved up to the room with a
window. Did he tell you that?" asked Elizabeth.

"He said he thought the music did him good," acknowledged Adolphus.

"May-be it was the same as with Saul when David played for him. But he
does not look like a bad man, papa. He looks grander than any of our
officers. And he has fought battles, they say. He is very brave."

Both Adolphus and Pauline Montier looked at their daughter with the
most profound surprise when she spoke thus. Not merely her words, but
her manner of speaking, caused this not agreeable perplexity. Her
emotion was not only too obvious, it was too deep for their
understanding. The mother was the first to speak.

"How did you hear all this, child? _I_ never heard him talked of in
this way. They don't talk about him at all,--do they, Adolphus?"

"No," he answered; but he spoke the word very mildly. The tone did not
indicate a want of sympathy in the compassion of his daughter.

Elizabeth looked from her mother to her father. What friends had she,
if these were not her friends?

"The jailer told Sandy, and Sandy told me," she said. "But they never