صفحة 654 من 896

She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark dresses,

akin to mourning dresses, which she and her child wore, were as

neat and as well attended to as the brighter clothes of happy

days. She lost her colour, and the old and intent expression was

a constant, not an occasional, thing; otherwise, she remained

very pretty and comely. Sometimes, at night on kissing her

father, she would burst into the grief she had repressed all day,

and would say that her sole reliance, under Heaven, was on him.

He always resolutely answered: "Nothing can happen to him without

my knowledge, and I know that I can save him, Lucie."

They had not made the round of their changed life many weeks,

when her father said to her, on coming home one evening: