“The horrid gaolers now put us by dozens in a cart. Mamma had her hands tied, but I lay in her arms, almost insensible, though I could feel her tears rolling down my face and neck, and could hear her sobbing, ‘Oh, God! spare my last and only one; I am resigned, but in mercy spare her!’ I think I was roused then, when I heard those words, and felt her lips pressed to mine, for I cried out, ‘No, no, where you go I go.’ Then there was a great and terrible shout from the multitude; the soldiers on horseback trampled on the crowd; shrieks and frightful cries filled the air; the cart we were in was surrounded and overturned; there was firing of guns, and then mamma and I were torn from the cart, mantles thrown over us, and we were hurried along without seeing or knowing anything. By and by—how long I cannot say—our eyes were uncovered—I was in mamma’s arms; we were in a boat, and Jean Plessis and another man, stripped of their coats, pulling strongly at the oars.
“We were going down the Rhone—we were saved! We endured a great deal getting to Toulon, Jean Plessis’ native town, and the house he put us in there was his own; for his father, at one time, was very well off. You know all the rest, dear William; and now do you really think it possible my brother might have been saved? Surely Jean Plessis would have heard of him.”
“No, my dear Mabel, perhaps not; because your brother might have still remained in prison, or have been forced to join the Republican army as a soldier, like hundreds of others.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mabel, with enthusiasm, “what happiness would be in store for mamma, if Julian lives.”
“Do you remember the Duke, your stepfather, well?” questioned our hero.
“Yes; though for more than two years before his death he was absent from the château.”
“And what kind of a man was the Duke, Mabel?”
“Oh, a grand, tall gentleman, with such a kind, gentle look; but he was quite grey—oh, much older than mamma; he looked more like her father than her husband, and he was so kind to Julian and myself; I loved him as well as if he had been my own father.
“Won’t you, William, be rejoiced to see your father and mother, when we get to England?” asked Mabel, fixing her expressive eyes on the midshipman, who, for an instant, looked sad. Mabel saw the change in his handsome features at once, and, taking his hand in hers, said, softly——
“I fear I have asked a question that pains you; like me, perhaps, you have lost a parent?”