"Mary save her!" said the old man with gratified look.
"I say I saw your daughter, your daughter, you know," said the general again, quizzing Kabilovitsch with his eyes.
"Ay, my daughter! and the Virgin Mother never sent a fairer child, save Jesu himself, to prince or peasant."
"Come, now," said the general, "tell me, did the Holy Virgin send this child to prince or peasant?"
"Why?" said Kabilovitsch, "these horny hands should tell thee, Sire, that I was not royal born."
"But the girl may be, if you were not. Is she your child?"
"Yes, my child, if heaven ever sent one to man."
"But, tell me," probed the general, "how did heaven send you the maiden? Did the mother bring her, or did the angels drop her at your door? For, if that girl be your child, heaven did not know you even by sight; since it put not a freckle of your dark skin upon her fair face, nor one of your bristles into her hair. The stars are not begotten of storm-clouds; nor do I think she is your daughter."
To this the old man replied, more to himself than to his interrogator, "If she is not mine by gift of nature, she is mine by gift of Him who is above nature."
"I will not steal your secret," said Hunyades. "Her name has excited my interest in her and her heaven-given or heaven-lent father. She needs better protection than you can give her in the camp. I will send her to headquarters."