Honorine sadly shook her head.
"No," she murmured. "And that is the whole secret: your mother did not bear his name—for they were not married."
"Not married! Oh! poor mother! poor mother! And that was what she dared not tell me! Am I any less her child on that account?"
"Now, Agathe, listen to the story of your mother's love, as she herself told it to me.
"She was born in Italy, but she left that country when she was very young, with her parents, who settled in Switzerland. They died just as she reached her sixteenth year. She lived then with an old Swiss woman, who treated her very badly and reduced her almost to the condition of a servant. She was keeping a flock of goats, which she drove to pasture on the mountains, when she fell in with a young foreigner who was travelling in Switzerland for pleasure. He was a Frenchman, named Adhémar de Hautmont; he was rich and of noble birth; but he was young, handsome, attractive and susceptible; and it seems that your mother, although a goatherd, was exceedingly pretty. In a word, the two young people were attracted to each other, fell in love and exchanged their vows; and your poor mother had no one to watch over her but the goats that she herself guarded!
"This liaison had lasted two months, and young Adhémar could not make up his mind to part from Julia. It became much harder when she told him that she bore within her a pledge of his love. At that, the young Frenchman said to her:
"'You cannot stay in this region, exposed to the cruel treatment of a woman who is harsh enough with you now, and will be much more so when she learns of your misstep. You must go with me; I will take you to France, to Paris, and you shall live there; I will take care that you lack nothing when I am obliged to leave you and go back to my family. And then I shall not be away long; as they allow me to travel often, for my education, instead of visiting Germany, Spain and England, I will pass my time with you until the moment when I can call you my wife and then I shall never have to leave you again.'
"You can imagine that your mother joyfully assented to her young lover's plan. So they left Switzerland together and came to Paris; young Adhémar installed his Julia in a small apartment, simple and retired, but provided with everything that she required. Then, having supplied her with all the money she was likely to need in his absence, he started for Toulouse; for he was not yet of age, and he had everything to fear from his family if they should learn that he had abducted from Switzerland a young girl who was with child by him.
"But everything went well; Adhémar calculated carefully the length of his absences, and he loved his Julia so dearly that he found a way to come to her when he was supposed to be far away in some foreign country.
"Then you came into the world, and when your father pressed you to his heart, he swore again that he would have no other wife than your mother.