“Sad!” he repeated, “sad! In all the years lost to me, the sight of your sweet face was the one joy. God sent it! God sent it, that I should be kept human!” “_He_ pitied you. When we went away his eyes were full of tears. I saw it by the light he carried.” “I think he did pity me, for he always spoke kindly, and never attempted to hurt my little friend.” “He was kind as a child, my father,” said Marguerite, weeping; “how I loved him. They could not have known how I loved him, or his poor life might have been spared.” “Poor child! Poor child!” said the prisoner, smoothing her hair with his white and withered hand. “If I could only comfort you; but I am old, and so helpless: we are but children together, you and I; our little marmousette is almost as strong. See how it sits upon my sleeve, with its bright eyes watching us. It knows, it knows! Hush! Hush! there is a footstep.” Marguerite held her breath and listened, for in that weird place, so laden with murderous traditions, the least sound brought apprehension with it. There was, indeed, a noise of footsteps wandering among the disjointed stones overhead. “Hush!” whispered the prisoner; and Marguerite could see that his limbs shook in the moonlight. “It may be that fierce woman. She who says that I and my sorrows belong to France.” “No, it is not the step of a woman,” answered Marguerite, under her breath. “I—I think I know it.” That moment a jagged fragment of stone came rushing down from the pile of rocks which encompassed the place where they were sitting, and crashed down upon the pavement, so close to the old man that a portion of his coarse garments were torn and buried under it. The girl thought that he was killed, and her wild shriek rang upward like the cry of a wounded night-bird. Then she fell upon her knees, and throwing one arm around the old man, drew her hand over his face, shuddering with fear that it would be bathed in his blood. He was alive and struggling to get up, for the strain on his garments had drawn him prone upon the floor, and for a moment he was stunned. “Is he hurt? Has it crushed him?” he demanded, turning his eyes upon Marguerite’s face with a look of painful entreaty. “He was so little, poor thing! they need not have hurled a mountain of rocks down to kill him.” “I think not, I hope not,” answered the girl, eager to comfort him. “It was creeping up to your shoulder just before the rock fell.” The old man made a desperate effort to free himself, and tore at his dress with vigor, wrenching it in tatters from under the stone; then he rose to his hands and knees, and shook that portion of the loose robe or cloak that fell over his bosom. “It is not here! It is not here!” he cried out, in anguish. “Not there; but look, look!” Marguerite pointed to the rock on which the moonlight fell, and there the little creature sat, alive and safe, with its bright eyes sparkling like diamonds.