The blood rushed to William Thornton’s heart with overwhelming force, as with an uncontrollable emotion he caught her to his heart, exclaiming—
“My God! how grateful am I! The one painful feeling of my life is scattered to the winds. Oh, Mabel! Mabel! Can you still love me as I adore you?”
“Dear William, why doubt poor Mabel’s love? How it has grown with my growth! It has been my pride and my joy that my happiness was centred in you.”
“Ah! and yet,” uttered the Lieutenant, in a tone of bitter self-reproach, “I apparently loved another.”
“No, William, you loved Mabel. In the midst of your love for Marie, Mabel was flitting before your mind’s eye, the pale, thin, careworn face of the child you protected was still struggling for a place in your heart—confess it.”
“Mabel, you are an angel,” and pressing her to his heart he fondly kissed her cheek.
A shadow crossed the grotto’s mouth, and Julia Plessis entered laughing, saying—
“Well, upon my word, strange things do occur in this world. I left you, monsieur, with a woman, and lo! I hear you say she’s an angel; never after this doubt the holiness of the Hermit’s Grotto.”
Before another word could be said a darker shadow crossed the grotto’s mouth, and caused the three absorbed inmates to start to their feet. The tall form of a man, with a fishing rod in his hand and a basket at his back, stood before them, and at a glance Lieutenant Thornton recognised Captain Gramont.
Raising his hat from his head, the Frenchman bowed with the utmost courtesy, saying—