"Excusable! nothing was more natural, my poor beloved angel; what wrong was there in being proud of a rank which was your own, of enjoying the advantages of the position to which I had restored you! At that time I recollect you were delightfully gay; how many times have I seen you fall into my arms as if overpowered with happiness, and heard you say to me, with an enchanting accent, 'My father, it is too much, too much happiness!' Unfortunately, these are only recollections; they lulled me into a deceitful security, and since then I have not been enough alarmed at the cause of your melancholy."
"But, tell us then, my child," asked Clémence, "what has changed into sadness this pure, this legitimate joy which you first felt?"
"Alas! a very sad and entirely unforeseen circumstance."
"What circumstance?"
"You recollect, my father," said Fleur-de-Marie, without being able to conquer a shuddering of horror; "you remember the sad scene which preceded our departure from Paris, when your carriage was stopped near the barrier?"
"Yes," replied Rudolph, sadly. "Brave Slasher, after having again saved my life; he died there before us, saying, 'Heaven is just; I have killed, they kill me.'"
"Oh well, father, at the moment when this unfortunate man was expiring, do you know whom I saw looking intently at me? Oh, that look, that look! it has pursued me ever since," added Fleur-de-Marie, shuddering.
"What look? of whom do you speak?" cried Rudolph.
"Of the Ogress of the White Rabbit," murmured Fleur-de-Marie.
"That monster seen again?—where?"