“Yes, my children! he belongs to you as well as to me. We have all our part in him.” Then, addressing Gabriel, the soldier added with affectionate warmth: “Your hand, my brave boy! give me your hand!”
“Oh, sir! you are too good to me.”
“Yes—that’s it—thank me!—after all thou has done for us!”
“Does my adopted mother know of your return?” asked Gabriel, anxious to escape from the praises of the soldier.
“I wrote to her five months since, but said that I should come alone; there was a reason for it, which I will explain by and by. Does she still live in the Rue Brise-Miche? It was there Agricola was born.”
“She still lives there.”
“In that case, she must have received my letter. I wished to write to her from the prison at Leipsic, but it was impossible.”
“From prison! Have you just come out of prison?”
“Yes; I come straight from Germany, by the Elbe and Hamburg, and I should be still at Leipsic, but for an event which the Devil must have had a hand in—a good sort of devil, though.”
“What do you mean? Pray explain to me.”