"'My dear father,' said Count Ernest, placing the written paper before him: 'let me entreat you to do nothing hasty; see here, what I have written; and if you really would make me happy before I go, and do me the greatest favor, please put your seal and signature here, as a ratification of mine. I have sometimes thought I must seem stranger to you than any stranger; our ways of thinking are so different. At the age when sons grow up to be their father's friends, I have been pained to find how little I have been yours. You have given me this moment a strong proof of your affection. But if you repent of it, if you would annul it, and prove to me that I am still as far from understanding you, or doing anything to make you happy, as my poor mother always was,--then, I say,--destroy that paper.' "Count Henry took it, and I saw his hand tremble, as he held it up to read it. 'Ernest,' he said; 'this is simply impossible; there never can be any question of your giving up this property, to have it settled on a stepmother and her heirs; it can't be done.'" "The paper fell upon the table, and the two stood side by side for a minute without speaking, and that sunny room was still as death." "All at once we heard a quick step coming through the ante-chamber, and Pierre came, out of breath, to say:" "'Monsieur le Comte! Is M. le Comte aware that Mamsell Gabrielle is missing, and that the ranger's assistant met her before day-break, walking on the road to X, and that Mamsell Flor Las been missed as well, and looked for all over the house without being found?' "'The calèche to the door, this instant!' cried my master, snatching at his hat, that lay on a chair. 'Stay,' he called after the man who was already on the threshold; 'my horse--have it saddled and brought round--allons!' "'I will accompany you, Sir, if I may,' said Count Ernest; 'as it is, I am all ready for the road.' And he would have hurried away after the servant, but his father held him back, looked in his face without saying a word, and then suddenly folding him in his arms, they stood for a moment heart to heart. After that I saw no more; my eyes were running over, and everything was swimming before me. By the time I had got them dry again--and that was not easy--the room was empty, and only the paper on the table was there to tell me that it had not been all a dream." "How I felt as I got down the winding staircase, you may fancy, Sir;--when I had found the door again, groping about with my trembling hands, and stepped out of the dark into the broad daylight again, I felt as if it were a quite new world I was coming to. I heard the horses' hoofs on the pavement of the court, and I saw from the window father and son galloping over the bridge together, while the light carriage that was going to fetch our Gabrielle, was driving gaily after them in the morning sunshine."