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M. Mirande, however, a little to his guest's surprise, would not hear of this; observing curtly that he could trust his household, and that a change of name was all that safety required.
"Come with me to the nearest Guard House, and I will inform against you. After all, it will be the shortest way. It was only that being a citizen, and not a ci-devant, I wished to do justice even to you." The young man hesitated. He had spoken truly when he suggested that he was unwilling to be beholden to Mirande. But the alternative meant certain death.
He would have cursed the police, had he dared, and had not the tricolour scarf awed him. "Bah!" he exclaimed at last in venomous tones, "a fine piece of play-acting, M. Mirande! And our friends here have indulgently given you time for it. But it is over, and the sequel will be less pleasant, I fear. He laughs best who laughs last."
AT this time Mirande was nearing the close of her seventeenth year. She was beautiful, and well grown. An air of purity, innocence, and artlessness hung round her like a veil. The length of her eyelashes, which barred her blue eyes, and the childlike smallness of her mouth, gave the impression that evil could never find means to enter into her.
"What I tell you," the Vicomte rejoined, with a solemnity which at last enforced the other's attention, "is as true as that I loved my wife and would have died to save her. I swear it!" M. Mirande passed his hand over his brow, and stood for a moment gazing at his son-in-law. There was a new expression, an expression almost of fear, in his eyes.
"For shame, sir!" the young noble answered, his eyes sparkling with indignation. "You insult, not me, but your dead daughter! Do you think that I loved her for her fortune alone? Or that her very image, untenanted by her soul, would satisfy me?" "They were singularly alike," Mirande muttered with a grim shrug. "God knows! At any rate you are warned."
The saintly Bishop Nicolas had an orphan niece, Mirande by name, who had just reached her seventh year, and was dearer to him than the light of his eyes. A worthy widow by name Basine was rearing her in piety, good manners, and ignorance of evil. The three miraculously saved children were confided to the care of this lady. She was not lacking in judgment.
"You cannot say I did not warn you," he said, avoiding the look of scorn which Claire who stood by her father's side, her hand in his shot at him. "But you would go your way." "And you, yours!" Mirande retorted. "An old way Judas's. But hark you, my friend! You seem to be prospering now. You have kicked down the ladder by which you have risen. Yet it is in my power to wound you.
I am empowered to arrest you in the name of the Committee of Safety; you, your daughter also present I think and a guest. This I presume is the person?" "It is," Mirande answered quietly. "Perhaps you will permit me to show you where my papers are. They may be needed?" "They will be needed," the Commissary replied, re-arranging his scarf, which had been pulled awry.
Her fair head was covered with mud, and her whole body was a mass of filth. In this unhappy creature the holy Bishop Nicolas recognized his niece Mirande. "What do you there, my daughter?" he cried. "Why are you naked, and wherefore do you walk on your hands and knees? Have you no shame?" "No, uncle, I am not ashamed," sweetly replied Mirande.
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