"Madame, pardon me," said the lady, very hurriedly, "but may I enquire what is your Christian name?"
"Josephine."
"Josephine!"
"Yes, madame. I was named at the font, Josephine St. Marie Duré de Lusart."
"Good heavens, my lord, if it should be so!" exclaimed Lady Rohallion, hurrying to her escritoire and bringing forth an old faded and yellow packet, from which she took a ring—the same that had been found on Quentin's father. It bore, as we have stated elsewhere, the name of Josephine graven on the gold, and a crest, a demi-griffin cut on an amethyst.
"This ring, madame—this ring—where did it come from? It was my mother's gift to my first husband, Captain Kennedy, of the Scottish regiment de Berwick, in the service of France; and this letter," continued Madame de Ribeaupierre, with increasing agitation, "this letter was mine—mine, written to him after he had left me with our child to return to his own country, whither I was to follow him——"
"And this commission, madame?"
"Was his—was his," she exclaimed, becoming deeply excited, as she pressed to her lips the signature of Louis XVI. "How came it here? And this letter, too, of Monsieur le Comte d'Artois, written to him after the campaigns on the Meuse and Rhine?"
"They were found in the pocket-book of Quentin's father, when he was cast drowned on the beach, with him, then a little child, senseless and benumbed by cold," said Lady Rohallion, with one arm placed caressingly round the Frenchwoman's neck, and with her eyes full of tears, as the wild and stormy night on which our story opened came back to memory.
Madame Ribeaupierre became quite hysterical.