"You have consulted with the Marquis?"
"Mais oui. It was difficult, but I have brought him to my way of thinking. I am certain that it was an error in the first place not taking you into our confidence. Eh bien! Tell me, do you know how your foster-sister came to be in the charge of your mother at the Inn at the Red Oak?"
"Yes, I know what my mother has told me. The child was abandoned to her rather than left in her charge."
"Mais non" said Madame de la Fontaine; "General Pointelle was impelled to act as he did by the strongest motives,—nothing less than the tremendous task, undertaken for his country, to liberate the Emperor Napoleon from Elba. General Pointelle was a soldier,—more, he was a maréchal of the Empire; the greatest responsibilities devolved upon him. It was impossible for him to be burdened with a child."
"But why, madame, did he not take my mother into his confidence?"
"Secrecy was imperative, monsieur. Even to this day, you do not know who General Pointelle actually was. His was a name well-known in France, glorious in the annals of the Empire; a name, too, familiar to you in a somewhat different connection. 'General Pointelle' was the nom-de-guerre, as it were, of François, Marquis de Boisdhyver, maréchal de France."
"François! you say, François!" exclaimed Dan.
"Mais oui, monsieur; but that should hardly astonish you so much as the fact that he was a Boisdhyver. Why are you surprised?"
"Simply, madame," exclaimed Dan hastily, "by the fact that it is the same name as that of our Marquis."
"Not quite," corrected the lady; "our Marquis—as you say—is Marie-Anne-Timélon-Armand de Boisdhyver, the General's younger brother."