“He had scarcely finished speaking when he placed his hand upon his heart and fell back lifeless. The shock to Archibald was so great that for some time he sat motionless; then, realizing the danger to himself if found there alone, he resolved to escape from the house. When he reached the corridor he saw the open door in the wall of a back attic room. He crept through it into a meat room, closed it after him and went down a flight of steps and out a door which he locked and took the key, unconsciously. He walked back to Baltimore, where at the bedside of his wife he wrote the letter to Father De Cormis, closing it with a heartfelt petition for assistance, and taking all the blame of the daughter’s disobedience upon himself.
“The letter was never mailed by him, for his wife died that night. The next morning he took Jerusha and Horace to the orphan asylum, then went to the hospital, where the letter was found upon his person.”
“Does Horace Flint say that his father is yet living?” asked Hilda.
“Yes, but he has no home, but wanders about, his mind nearly a blank since his attack of brain fever.”
“It surely is Archie, the Archie who saved my life!” exclaimed Hilda. “No one in the neighborhood knows his last name, for he has forgotten it.”
“Horace mentioned that he sees him frequently, as did Jerusha, but without making themselves known to him. I think there is no doubt but he is the Archie you speak of; and, my dear, I am sure you will be surprised to know that Jerusha was the great-granddaughter of a French nobleman—the Marquis De Cormis. He was a noted officer in the French army, but owing to a sudden ebullition of temper was forced to flee from his native land.”
“Is it possible?” exclaimed Hilda. “I wonder if Jerusha knew it!”
“Yes, her mother told her of it in the letter which Jerusha sent to her brother Horace, and which Horace forwarded to Philadelphia. He also showed me a slip cut from a London newspaper of that date which gave all the details of the affair which made a refugee of the marquis.”
“Do you know what it was?”
“Yes, my father-in-law told us of it a short time before his death, and we also found a full account of it among his papers and those of the marquis, which he had kept. The substance of it was that the young Marquis De Cormis was at one time summoned from the frontier by his superior officer, and when he upon a dark, stormy night arrived at the tent of the officer, cold, wet, and exhausted from a long ride, he was severely and insultingly reprimanded for his delay in reaching there.