one! Like me, you are alone on earth."
She sighed and wept. The graceful pose of her child lying on her knees

made her smile sadly. She looked at him long, tasting one of those
pleasures which are a secret between mothers and God. Etienne's

weakness was so great that until he was a year and a half old she had
never dared to take him out of doors; but now the faint color which

tinted the whiteness of his skin like the petals of a wild rose,
showed that life and health were already there.

One morning the countess, giving herself up to the glad joy of all
mothers when their first child walks for the first time, was playing

with Etienne on the floor when suddenly she heard the heavy step of a
man upon the boards. Hardly had she risen with a movement of

involuntary surprise, when the count stood before her. She gave a cry,
but endeavored instantly to undo that involuntary wrong by going up to

him and offering her forehead for a kiss.
"Why not have sent me notice of your return?" she said.

"My reception would have been more cordial, but less frank," he
answered bitterly.

Suddenly he saw the child. The evident health in which he found it
wrung from him a gesture of surprise mingled with fury. But he

repressed his anger, and began to smile.
"I bring good news," he said. "I have received the governorship of

Champagne and the king's promise to be made duke and peer. Moreover,
we have inherited a princely fortune from your cousin; that cursed

Huguenot, Georges de Chaverny is killed."
The countess turned pale and dropped into a chair. She saw the secret

of the devilish smile on her husband's face.
"Monsieur," she said in a voice of emotion, "you know well that I

loved my cousin Chaverny. You will answer to God for the pain you
inflict upon me."

At these words the eye of the count glittered; his lips trembled, but
he could not utter a word, so furious was he; he flung his dagger on

the table with such violence that the metal resounded like a thunder-
clap.

"Listen to me," he said in his strongest voice, "and remember my
words. I will never see or hear the little monster you hold in your

arms. He is your child, and not mine; there is nothing of me in him.
Hide him, I say, hide him from my sight, or--"

"Just God!" cried the countess, "protect us!"
"Silence!" said her husband. "If you do not wish me to throttle him,

see that I never find him in my way."
"Then," said the countessgathering strength to oppose her tyrant,

"swear to me that if you never meet him you will do nothing to injure
him. Can I trust your word as a nobleman for that?"

"What does all this mean?" said the count.
"If you will not swear, kill us now together!" cried the countess,

falling on her knees and pressing her child to her breast.
"Rise, madame. I give you my word as a man of honor to do nothing

against the life of that cursed child, provided he lives among the
rocks between the sea and the house, and never crosses my path. I will

give him that fisherman's house down there for his dwelling, and the
beach for a domain. But woe betide him if I ever find him beyond those

limits."
The countess began to weep.

"Look at him!" she said. "He is your son."
"Madame!"

At that word, the frightened mother carried away the child whose heart
was beating like that of a bird caught in its nest. Whether innocence

has a power which the hardest men cannot escape, or whether the count
regretted his violence and feared to plunge into despair a creature so

necessary to his pleasures and also to his worldlyprosperity, it is
certain that his voice was as soft as it was possible to make it when

his wife returned.
"Jeanne, my dear," he said, "do not be angry with me; give me your

hand. One never knows how to trust you women. I return, bringing you
fresh honors and more wealth, and yet, tete-Dieu! you receive me like

an enemy. My new government will oblige me to make long absences until
I can exchange it for that of Lower Normandy; and I request, my dear,

that you will show me a pleasant face while I am here."
The countess understood the meaning of the words, the feigned softness

of which could no longer deceive her.
"I know my duty," she replied in a tone of sadness which the count

mistook for tenderness.
The timid creature had too much purity and dignity to try, as some

clever women would have done, to govern the count by putting
calculation into her conduct,--a sort of prostitution by which noble

souls feel degraded. Silently she turned away, to console her despair
with Etienne.

"Tete-Dieu! shall I never be loved?" cried the count, seeing the tears
in his wife's eyes as she left the room.

Thus incessantly threatened, motherhood became to the poor woman a
passion which assumed the intensity that women put into their guilty

affections. By a species of occult communion, the secret of which is
in the hearts of mothers, the child comprehended the peril that

threatened him and dreaded the approach of his father. The terrible
scene of which he had been a witness remained in his memory, and

affected him like an illness; at the sound of the count's step his
features contracted, and the mother's ear was not so alert as the

instinct of her child. As he grew older this faculty created by terror
increased, until, like the savages of America, Etienne could

distinguish his father's step and hear his voice at immense distances.
To witness the terror with which the count inspired her thus shared by

her child made Etienne the more precious to the countess; their union
was so strengthened that like two flowers on one twig they bent to the

same wind, and lifted their heads with the same hope. In short, they
were one life.

When the count again left home Jeanne was pregnant. This time she gave
birth in due season, and not without great suffering, to a stout boy,

who soon became the living image of his father, so that the hatred of
the count for his first-born was increased by this event. To save her

cherished child the countess agreed to all the plans which her husband
formed for the happiness and wealth of his second son, whom he named

Maximilien. Etienne was to be made a priest, in order to leave the
property and titles of the house of Herouville to his younger brother.

At that cost the poor mother believed she ensured the safety of her
hated child.

No two brothers were ever more unlike than Etienne and Maximilien. The
younger's taste was all for noise, violent exercises, and war, and the

count felt for him the same excessive love that his wife felt for
Etienne. By a tacit compact each parent took charge of the child of

their heart. The duke (for about this time Henri IV. rewarded the
services of the Seigneur d'Herouville with a dukedom), not wishing, he

said, to fatigue his wife, gave the nursing of the youngest boy to a
stout peasant-woman chosen by Beauvouloir, and announced his

determination to bring up the child in his own manner. He gave him, as
time went on, a holy horror of books and study; taught him the

mechanical knowledge required by a military career, made him a good
rider, a good shot with an arquebuse, and skilful with his dagger.

When the boy was big enough he took him to hunt, and let him acquire
the savage language, the rough manners, the bodily strength, and the

vivacity of look and speech which to his mind were the attributes of
an accomplished man. The boy became, by the time he was twelve years

old, a lion-cub ill-trained, as formidable in his way as the father
himself, having free rein to tyrannize over every one, and using the

privilege.
Etienne lived in the little house, or lodge, near the sea, given to

him by his father, and fitted up by the duchess with some of the
comforts and enjoyments to which he had a right. She herself spent the

greater part of her time there. Together the mother and child roamed
over the rocks and the shore, keeping strictly within the limits of

the boy's domain of beach and shells, of moss and pebbles. The boy's
terror of his father was so great that, like the Lapp, who lives and

dies in his snow, he made a native land of his rocks and his cottage,
and was terrified and uneasy if he passed his frontier.

The duchess, knowing her child was not fitted to find happiness except
in some humble and retiredsphere, did not regret the fate that was