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"Lucie! My own! I am safe."

"O dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees as I

have prayed to Him."

They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When she was

again in his arms, he said to her:

"And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in all this

France could have done what he has done for me."

She laid her head upon her father's breast, as she had laid his

poor head on her own breast, long, long ago. He was happy in the

return he had made her, he was recompensed for his suffering, he

was proud of his strength. "You must not be weak, my darling," he

remonstrated; "don't tremble so. I have saved him."

CHAPTER VII. A Knock at the Door

"I have saved him." It was not another of the dreams in which he

had often come back; he was really here. And yet his wife

trembled, and a vague but heavy fear was upon her.