Now Marie-Anne understood it all. But what was passing in her father's
mind? She wished to know; and, leaving the low chair in which she had
been seated, she went to her father's side.

"Are you ill, father?" she asked, in her sweet voice; "what is the
matter? What do you fear? Why do you not confide in me?--Am I not your
daughter? Do you no longer love me?"

At the sound of this dear voice, M. Lacheneur trembled like a sleeper
suddenly aroused from the terrors of a nightmare, and he cast an
indescribable glance upon his daughter.

"Did you not hear what Chupin said to me?" he replied, slowly. "The Duc
de Sairmeuse is at Montaignac; he will soon be here; and we are dwelling
in the chateau of his fathers, and his domain has become ours!"

The vexed question regarding the national lands, which agitated France
for thirty years, Marie understood, for she had heard it discussed a
thousand times.

"Ah, well, dear father," said she, "what does that matter, even if we do
hold the property? You have bought it and paid for it, have you not? So
it is rightfully and lawfully ours."

M. Lacheneur hesitated a moment before replying.

But his secret suffocated him. He was in one of those crises in which a
man, however strong he may be, totters and seeks some support, however
fragile.