His face betrayed the pain he suffered in inflicting pain on her. “What can I tell you?” he answered. “It is cruel to deceive you. It is cruel to speak the truth. I have never seen the boy since he left me. Do you think I would have kept him from you? How can I find him? How can I bring him back? You talk as if I was King of France!” A horrible fear came across her. She rose to her feet, and shook both fists in his face. “Man!” she exclaimed, “do not tell me he is dead! You shall answer for it, if heaven or hell have any power on earth!” There were tears in his little beady eyes, unaccustomed tears, that vouched for his truth, even to _her_, while he replied— “You are unjust, Célandine; and you would see your injustice if you did but think for a moment. What had I to gain by taking care of the boy? What had I to gain by ridding myself of him? Had I been to blame, do you suppose I should have sent you the earliest information of his flight? Have I not felt your sorrows keenly as if they were my own? Do I not feel for you now? Listen. I am the same Stefano Bartoletti who told you the secret of his life, the desire of his heart, by the side of that sweet serene lagoon, in the beautiful island which probably neither of us may ever see again. I have learned many strange lessons—I have witnessed many strange scenes since then. Many years have passed over my head, and wisdom has not despised me as the least apt among her pupils. Statesmen, nobles, princes themselves have been glad to visit me in person, and reap the fruit of my studies and my experience. But I tell you, Célandine,” and here the little man smote his breast, and for the moment looked every inch a champion, “I am the same Stefano Bartoletti. I swear to you that if you will but join me heart and hand in this, the last and greatest of my schemes, I will never rest till I have found the boy, and brought him back into his mother’s arms!” She gave a wild, fierce cry of joy, and was hugging the brown hand to her bosom once more. “Money,” observed the Signor, walking thoughtfully up and down the room as soon as she had sufficiently composed herself to listen, “money, you perceive, is the one thing we require. Money alone can overcome this, like all other difficulties on earth. Money in sufficient quantity would make me independent, contented, perhaps happy.” Here he stole a tender look in the Quadroon’s face. “Money would enable me to quit these cold, dull regions; this constrained, confined, unnatural life. Money would restore _me_ my liberty, and _you_ your child. Célandine, will you help me to get it?” He had touched the right chord. There was eager hope and wild unscrupulous energy in her face while she answered— “I will! I swear it! Heart and hand I go in with you for this object, and neither fire nor water, nor steel nor poison shall turn me now. You know me, Stefano. I will shrink from nothing. But it is—it is not a question of blood?”