"It is frightfully burned, frightfully!" she cried. "Why, you must be suffering agony with it. It was just done. How did it happen? I know. It was when you poured the boiling water in the urn, and, for fear we would laugh at you, you endured the terrible pain without a word. You even had the courage to go on reading all this time just as if nothing had happened." "Ah, I told you that he was brave," exclaimed the young girl. "His is the true courage, after all,--not the ferocious courage born of anger, that seeks only to destroy, but the courage of noble hearts who, for fear of alarming those whom they love, endure the most intense suffering without so much as a sign." The girl's emotion repaid the young man a thousand-fold for his suffering; he even had the happiness of seeing the touching expression of her features, too, this time, as she would insist upon assisting the housekeeper in dressing Onésime's hand. This work had just been completed, and Onésime was regretting that he had only one burn, when the door of the little parlour was suddenly thrown open, and a servant rushed in, exclaiming: "Dame Roberts, Dame Roberts, M. Segoffin has come!" "And my father,--my father has come too, has he not?" exclaimed the girl, her face radiant with joy. "No, mademoiselle, M. Segoffin says monsieur was detained at the post-office by some letters, but that he will be here almost immediately." The girl hastened out of the room to prepare to meet her father. As the door closed behind her, Dame Roberts turned to her nephew and said: "Go up to your room now, Onésime. I will see you before I go to bed and tell you what M. Cloarek says in relation to you, for he must know why I took you into his house in his absence, though I know his kindness of heart well enough to feel sure that he will approve of what I have done." So Onésime went up to his room oppressed by a vague uneasiness. He had scarcely left the parlour, when M. Segoffin entered it. CHAPTER X. SEGOFFIN'S DISSIMULATION. It would be far from complimentary to the reader's penetration to suppose that he had not long since recognised in Onésime's defender Mlle. Cloarek, who lost her mother at the age of five years, in consequence of a nervous shock. We trust, too, that the reader's penetration has served him equally well in the case of Suzanne Roberts, Sabine's former nurse, and Madame Cloarek's confidential attendant and housekeeper, and likewise in the case of Captain l'Endurci and his brave head gunner. Twelve years have elapsed since we last saw Segoffin, and he is little changed in appearance. He looks as much like a clown as ever, the only modifications which time, or rather events, have made in his grotesquely grave features being, first, a deep scar beginning at the left temple, and extending to the bottom of the cheek (a wound caused, as he affirmed, by an unfortunate fall upon a piece of broken glass).