With what religious and subtile admiration had that unknown being listened to him! The stillness of the atmosphere enabled him to hear every sound, and he quivered at the distant rustle of the folds of a gown.

He was amazed,--he, whom all emotions produced by terror sent to the verge of death--to feel within him the healing, balsamic sensation which his mother's coming had formerly brought to him.
"Come, Gabrielle, my child," said the voice of Beauvouloir, "I forbade you to stay upon the seashore after sundown; you must come in, my daughter." "Gabrielle," said Etienne to himself.

"Oh! the pretty name!" Beauvouloir presently came to him, rousing his young master from one of those meditations which resemble dreams.

It was night, and the moon was rising.
"Monseigneur," said the physician, "you have not been out to-day, and it is not wise of you." "And I," replied Etienne, "can _I_ go on the seashore after sundown ?" The double meaning of this speech, full of the gentle playfulness of a first desire, made the old man smile.
"You have a daughter, Beauvouloir." "Yes, monseigneur,--the child of my old age; my darling child.
Monseigneur, the duke, your father, charged me so earnestly to watch your precious health that, not being able to go to Forcalier, where she was, I have brought her here, to my great regret.

In order to conceal her from all eyes, I have placed her in the house monseigneur used to occupy.