"I cannot answer you."
"Has any one taken them away?"
"Alas, my dear! why ask me these questions? I cannot answer you."
"Will they come back here?"
"I do not know."
Dagobert started up; his patience was once more exhausted. But, after taking a few turns in the room, he again seated himself as before.
"After all," said he to his wife, "you have no interest to conceal from me what is become of the children. Why refuse to let me know?"
"I cannot do otherwise."
"I think you will change your opinion, when you know something that I am now forced to tell you. Listen to me well!" added Dagobert, in an agitated voice; "if these children are not restored to me before the 13th of February—a day close at hand—I am in the position of a man that would rob the daughters of Marshal Simon—rob them, d'ye understand?" said the soldier, becoming more and more agitated. Then, with an accent of despair which pierced Frances's heart, he continued: "And yet I have done all that an honest man could do for those poor children—you cannot tell what I have had to suffer on the road—my cares, my anxieties—I, a soldier, with the charge of two girls. It was only by strength of heart, by devotion, that I could go through with it—and when, for my reward, I hoped to be able to say to their father: 'Here are your children!—'" The soldier paused. To the violence of his first emotions had succeeded a mournful tenderness; he wept.
At sight of the tears rolling slowly down Dagobert's gray moustache, Frances felt for a moment her resolution give way; but, recalling the oath which she had made to her confessor, and reflecting that the eternal salvation of the orphans was at stake, she reproached herself inwardly with this evil temptation, which would no doubt be severely blamed by Abbe Dubois. She answered, therefore, in a trembling voice: "How can they accuse you of robbing these children?"