"Unhappily there is no mistake. Louise Morel, take leave of your father!"
"What! are you going to take my daughter away?" exclaimed the workman, furious with grief, and advancing towards the magistrate with a menacing air.
Rodolph seized the lapidary by the arm, and said to him:
"Be calm, and hope for the best; your daughter will be restored to you; her innocence must be proved; she cannot be guilty."
"Guilty of what? She is not guilty of anything. I will put my hand in the fire if—" Then, remembering the gold which Louise had brought to pay the bill with, Morel cried, "But the money—that money you had this morning, Louise!" And he gave his daughter a terrible look.
Louise understood it.
"I rob!" she exclaimed; and her cheeks suffused with generous indignation, her tone and gesture, reassured her father.
"I knew it well enough!" he exclaimed. "You see, M. le Commissaire, she denies it; and I swear to you, that she never told me a lie in her life; and everybody that knows her will say the same thing as I do. She lie! Oh, no, she is too proud to do that! And, then, the bill has been paid by our benefactor. The gold she does not wish to keep, but will return it to the person who lent it to her, desiring him not to tell any one; won't you, Louise?"
"Your daughter is not accused of theft," said the magistrate.
"Well, then, what is the charge against her? I, her father, swear to you that she is innocent of whatever crime they may accuse her of, and I never told a lie in my life either."