"Who—who brought you up?" asked the soldier, with increasing astonishment.
"An excellent and generous woman, whom I revere as the best of mothers: for she had pity on me, a deserted infant, and treated me ever as her son."
"Frances Baudoin—was it not?" said the soldier, with deep emotion.
"It was, sir," answered Gabriel, astonished in his turn. "But how do you know this?"
"The wife of a soldier, eh?" continued Dagobert.
"Yes, of a brave soldier—who, from the most admirable devotion, is even now passing his life in exile—far from his wife—far from his son, my dear brother—for I am proud to call him by that name—"
"My Agricola!—my wife!—when did you leave them?"
"What! is it possible! You the father of Agricola?—Oh! I knew not, until now," cried Gabriel, clasping his hands together, "I knew not all the gratitude that I owed to heaven!"
"And my wife! my child!" resumed Dagobert, in a trembling voice; "how are they? have you news of them?"
"The accounts I received, three months ago, were excellent."