"Ah, my God! Are these our children? And is this what is in store for
us old people? We have spent a lifetime in watching over them; we have
submissively gratified all their fancies; they have been our greatest
anxiety, and our sweetest hope; we have given them our life day by day,
and we would not hesitate to give them our life's blood drop by drop;
they are every thing to us, and we imagine they love us--poor fools that
we are! One fine day, a man goes by, a careless, thoughtless man, with
a bright eye and a ready tongue, and it is all over. Our child is no
longer our own; our child no longer knows us. Go, old man, and die in
your corner."

Overwhelmed by his grief, the old man staggered and sank into a chair,
as an old oak, cut by the woodman's axe, trembles and falls.

"Ah, this is fearful!" murmured Dionysia. "What you say, grandpapa, is
too fearful. How can you doubt me?"

She had knelt down. She was weeping; and her hot tears fell upon the old
gentleman's hands. He started up as he felt them on his icy-cold hand;
and, making one more effort, he said,--

"Poor, poor child! And suppose Jacques is guilty, and, when he sees you,
confesses his crime, what then?"

Dionysia shook her head.

"That is impossible," she said; "and still, even if it were so, I ought
to be punished as much as he is; for I know, if he had asked me, I
should have acted in concert with him."