In Arthur's manner to her there was something of the reverent devotion that had been one means of drawing her heart so completely to the friend she was seeking in the desolate Alpine solitudes. The German had insulted Laura by treating her like a little child, for her late experiences had drawn her on, not from the sweet simplicity of childhood—for in this had consisted her power over the wild heart of L'Estrange—but from many of its feelings; Laura had become sensitive beyond her years, and this under the circumstances was scarcely wonderful. She had shared, and probably understood, her mother's sorrows; she had lived for her sake a life too intense for one of her tender years; she had taken a part in struggles of whose existence she ought to have known nothing; she had thought and dreamed and reasoned till the woman-nature that lies hidden in the heart of every girl-child had become unhealthily developed. Her childhood, in this sense, had passed by; Laura would never return to the gay carelessness of early youth.
Gravely she allowed Arthur to gather her up into his arms, and as, in their momentary stoppage, the light of the guide's lantern shone upon her pale fair face and deep earnest eyes, the young man wondered. He wondered at her unchildlike beauty—he wondered at his own instinctive reverence.
"Are you quite comfortable, Laura?" he inquired as he drew her cloak over her tiny feet.
"Quite, thank you," replied the child; "and you are very kind. Mon père will thank you; but oh, I wonder shall we find him soon?"
"Do you know that we are going to find some one else, Laura?" asked Arthur, rather shocked to find her head so full of her false father that she had no thoughts to spare for her true one.
"Yes, I know," she answered gravely; "and sometimes I'm sorry that I can't love my own papa so much as mon père; but, you see, I've never seen him: at least, mamma says I have; I don't remember at all." She paused a moment, then added in a grieved, puzzled tone, "Oh, please tell me—for I want so much to know—ought I to love my own papa as well as mamma and mon père?" The question had evidently been tormenting her.
"You ought to put such ideas out of your little head," said Arthur lightly.
"But I can't," replied the child in a grieved tone; and Arthur, quite perplexed, tried a new set of tactics:
"What makes you love this person so much whom you call mon père?"
"What makes me?" Unconsciously Arthur had started another bewildering question. She raised her head and knit her small brows: "It's not because he's good to me, for other people have been good to me, and I didn't love them. You know loving and liking are different. Mamma told me I ought to love my papa, but you see there isn't any ought in love, and I must love mon père best. Oh, I wonder why!"