"One survivor, however, remained in the person of Charles Armand, Prévôt de Sainte Aulaire, only son of the Marquis, then a youth of seventeen years of age, and pursuing his studies in the seclusion of an old family seat in Vaucluse. He fled into Italy. In the meantime, his inheritance was confiscated; and the last representative of the race, reduced to exile and beggary, assumed another name. It were idle to attempt to map out his life through the years that followed. He wandered from land to land; lived none knew how; became a tutor, a miniature-painter, a volunteer at Naples under General Pepe, a teacher of languages in London, corrector of the press to a publishing house in Brussels--everything or anything, in short, by which he could honorably earn his bread. During these years of toil and poverty, he married. The lady was an orphan, of Scotch extraction, poor and proud as himself, and governess in a school near Brussels. She died in the third year of their union, and left him with one little daughter. This child became henceforth his only care and happiness. While she was yet a mere infant, he placed her in the school where her mother had been teacher. There she remained, first as pupil, by-and-by as governess, for more than sixteen years. The child was called by an old family name that had been her grandmother's and her great-grandmother's in the high and palmy days of the Sainte Aulaires--Hortense."
"Hortense!" I cried, rising from my chair.
"It is not an uncommon name," said the lady. "Does it surprise you?"
"I--I beg your pardon, madam," I stammered, resuming my seat. "I once had a dear friend of that name. Pray, go on."
"For ten years the refugee contrived to keep his little Hortense in the safe and pleasant shelter of her Flemish home. He led a wandering life, no one knew where; and earned his money, no one knew how. Travel-worn and careworn, he was prematurely aged, and at fifty might well have been mistaken for a man of sixty-five or seventy. Poor and broken as he was, however, Monsieur de Sainte Aulaire was every inch a gentleman of the old school; and his little girl was proud of him, when he came to the school to see her. This, however, was very seldom--never oftener than twice or three times in the year. When she saw him for the last time, Hortense was about thirteen years of age. He looked paler, and thinner, and poorer than ever; and when he bade her farewell, it was as if under the presentiment that they might meet no more. He then told her, for the first time, something of his story, and left with her at parting a small coffer containing his decorations, a few trinkets that had been his mother's, and his sword--the badge of his nobility."
The lady's voice faltered. I neither spoke nor stirred, but sat like a man of stone.
Then she went on again:--
"The father never came again. The child, finding herself after a certain length of time thrown upon the charity of her former instructors, was glad to become under-teacher in their school. The rest of her history may be told in a few words. From under-teacher she became head-teacher, and at eighteen passed as governess into a private family. At twenty she removed to Paris, and set foot for the first time in the land of her fathers. All was now changed in France. The Bourbons reigned again, and her father, had he reappeared, might have reclaimed his lost estates. She sought him far and near. She employed agents to discover him. She could not believe that he was dead. To be once again clasped in his arms--to bring him back to his native country---to see him resume his name and station--this was the bright dream of her life. To accomplish these things she labored in many ways, teaching and writing; for Hortense also was proud--too proud to put forward an unsupported claim. For with her father were lost the title-deeds and papers that might have made the daughter wealthy, and she had no means of proving her identity. Still she labored heartily, lived poorly, and earned enough to push her inquiries far and wide--even to journey hither and thither, whenever she fancied, alas! that a clue had been found. Twice she travelled into Switzerland, and once into Italy, but always in vain. The exile had too well concealed, even from her, his sobriquet and his calling, and Hortense at last grew weary of failure. One fact, however, she succeeded in discovering, and only one--namely, that her father had, many years before, made some attempt to establish his claims to the estates, but that he had failed for want either of sufficient proof, or of means to carry on the procés. Of even this circumstance only a meagre law-record remained, and she could succeed in learning no more. Since then, a claim has been advanced by a remote branch of the Sainte Aulaire family, and the cause is, even now, in course of litigation."
She paused, as if fatigued by so long talking; but, seeing me about to speak, prevented me with a gesture of the hand, and resumed:--
"Hortense de Ste. Aulaire continued to live in Paris for nearly five years, at the end of which time she left it to seek out the members of her mother's family. Finding them kindly disposed towards her, she took up her abode amongst them in the calm seclusion of a remote Scotch town. There, even there, she still hoped, still employed agents; still yearned to discover, if not her father, at least her father's grave. Several years passed thus. She continued to earn a modest subsistence by her pen, till at length the death of one of those Scotch relatives left her mistress of a small inheritance. Money was welcome, since it enabled her to pursue her task with renewed vigor. She searched farther and deeper. A trivial circumstance eagerly followed up brought a train of other circumstances to light. She discovered that her father had assumed a certain name; she found that the bearer of this name was a wandering man, a conjuror by trade; she pursued the vague traces of his progress from town to town, from county to county, sometimes losing, sometimes regaining the scattered links. Sir, he was my father--I am that Hortense. I have spent my life seeking him--I have lived for this one hope. I have traced his footsteps here to Saxonholme, and here the last clue fails. If you know anything--if you can remember anything---"