"The dissimulation is necessary to-day, brother, but it will not last forever. When you shall have a deeper knowledge of the character of your wife; after some years of marriage and motherhood shall have ripened her judgment, then, and only then, you may make to her a complete confidence of my past. Until then, I must remain dead to her, as to all—except you three and one other of our relatives, the Prince of Gerolstein, my initiator into the Voyants. Dead I shall be to the world, but living to you and to Franz of Gerolstein."
"This Franz of Gerolstein," asked Victoria's father, "is he not one of the princes of that sovereign house of Germany founded of old by the descendants of our ancestor Gaëlo the Pirate?"
"Yes, father; the heir to a reigning prince was to-day one of the most fearless attackers of the Bastille."
At this moment a knock was heard at the door.
"Enter," cried John, and to the astonished eyes of the Lebrenn family appeared Franz of Gerolstein. In the Prince, whom Victoria had just named, John recognized one of his fellow-combatants of the day.
"Franz, here is my brother, of whom I have often spoken to you," said Victoria, taking John's hand and pressing it into that of the Prince. "You are relatives—now be friends. You are both worthy, one of the other. Both march in the same path."
"My dear John—for so it is that friends and relatives of the same age should greet," answered Franz with cordial familiarity, affectionately closing in his own hand that of the young artisan, "I know through your sister all the good that can be thought of you. That will tell you how glad I am to meet you."
"I also, my dear Franz, am happy to find in you a relative and a friend," John made answer, no less affectionately than the Prince. "Chance has made you of the sovereign race, yet you fight for the freedom of the people."
"My dear John, I am, like you, a son of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak. More than once, across the ages, the republican ardor of the old Gallic blood has roused itself in my plebeian race—although, by an uncouth stroke of destiny, it has been muffled under a sovereignship and a grand-ducal crown."
"Aye, we are indeed of the same blood—your words, your acts prove it," said the blind father. "Your hand—let me also press your hand, my brave young man."