She put her hand over her eyes, and paused for several moments; but then resuming her discourse, she said— “I cannot dwell upon that terrible time. My senses left me for several weeks, and when I awoke to a consciousness of my situation, I found myself a widow, nearly penniless, stripped of all the fine estates which my husband had possessed, with one dear boy, between four and five years old, fatherless, and marked out by the terrible curse of a black stain upon his father’s name. “Rank, station, fortune, love, hope, were all gone. The world seemed a blank void to me, and the waking from that frenzied sleep, like the recovery of a half-drowned man, was far more terrible than the death-like state which had preceded. I found, however, that besides good Father Bonneville, who had flown to me immediately, there was an English gentleman in the house, and as soon as I could bear it, I was told that he had been sent to me with a message from my father. When I could see him, I found that he was a stiff, dry, old man, but not altogether unkind, and he did not venture to give me the message he was charged to deliver for two or three days. He then, however, told me that he had a proposal to make to me, which had been reduced to writing, in my father’s own hand. It was this—” She paused again, unable to proceed, and Westover interposed, saying— “Let me tell him, my dear aunt?” “The case was this, Louis, my grandfather had watched anxiously the proceedings against your father, and when he found him condemned and executed, his whole estates confiscated, and his very name attainted, he sent over to offer my Aunt Catharine a refuge in her former home—but it was only for herself,” he added, in a slow and sorrowful tone. “He exacted that you should be left behind in France—that she should resume her maiden name—that you should be brought up in utter ignorance of your connection with his family, and, as far as possible, in ignorance also of your father’s history.” “It was a hard measure,” I said, somewhat bitterly, but Westover went on. “On these conditions, he promised to provide for you amply—to pay for your support and education, during youth, and to settle a sufficient property upon you at his death. The reason he assigned for these harsh measures—as you will call them—was, that his name had come down unstained for many generations, and that he would never admit or acknowledge any connection with a family, which had the taint of treason upon it.”