inasmuch as the secrecy he sought was for the sake, not of his own
memory, but that of her whom the world knew only as his honoured wife.
The conduct of Louise admits no such excuse; she dies as she had lived;
an Egotist. But, whatever the motives of the parents, what is the fate
of the deserted child? What revenge does the worldly opinion, which the
parents would escape for themselves, inflict on the innocent infant to
whom the bulk of their worldly possessions is to be clandestinely
conveyed? Would all the gold of Ophir be compensation enough for her?

Slowly De Mauleon roused himself, and turned from the solitary place
where he had been seated to a more crowded part of the ramparts. He
passed a group of young _Moblots_, with flowers wreathed round their gun-
barrels. "If," said one of them gaily, "Paris wants bread, it never
wants flowers." His companions laughed merrily, and burst out into a
scurrile song in ridicule of St. Trochu. Just then an _obus_ fell a few
yards before the group. The sound only for a moment drowned the song,
but the splinters struck a man in a coarse, ragged dress, who had stopped
to listen to the singers. At his sharp cry, two men hastened to his
side: one was Victor de Mauleon; the other was a surgeon, who quitted
another group of idlers--National Guards--attracted by the shriek that
summoned his professional aid. The poor man was terribly wounded. The
surgeon, glancing at De Mauleon, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered,
"Past help!" The sufferer turned his haggard eyes on the Vicomte, and
gasped out, "M. de Mauleon?"

"That is my name," answered Victor, surprised, and not immediately
recognising the sufferer.

"Hist, Jean Lebeau!--look at me: you recollect me now,--Mart le Roux,
_concierge_ to the Secret Council. Ay, I found out who you were long ago