"Yes, Batoche, we remember each other, though we have not met for some years. You live the life of an anchorite here, never coming to the city, and I remain in retirement, scarcely ever going from the city. We are almost strangers, and yet we are friends. We _must_ be friends now, even if we were not before." The old man did not reply, but asked his visitor to sit down, while he, having hung up his weapon, and drawn a chair to the fire-place, took a seat beside him. The fire had burned low and both were seated in the deep shadow. Blanche had offered to light a candle, but the men having refused by a sign, the child sat down on the other side of the hearth with the black cat circled on her lap. "I brought back the child to you," said M. Belmont, by way of opening the conversation. "She was in good hands with Pauline, her godmother, but we knew that she never spent a night out of your hermitage, and that you would be anxious if she did not return." "Oh, Blanche is like her old grandfather. She knows every path in the forest, every sign of the heavens, and no weather could prevent her from finding her home. I have no fear that man or beast would hurt the little creature. Indeed, she has the mark of Providence upon her and no harm will come to her so long as my life is spared. There is a spirit in the waterfall yonder, M. Belmont, which watches over her and the protection is inviolable. But I thank you, sir, and your daughter for having taken care of her." "I kept her for another reason, Batoche," and M. Belmont looked furtively at his companion, who returned his glance in the same dubious fashion. "It gave me the opportunity of paying you a visit which, for special reasons, is of the greatest importance to me." Batoche seemed to divine the secret thought of his guest, and put him immediately at his ease by saying: "I am a poor solitary being, M. Belmont, severed from all the world, cut off from the present, living only in the past, and hoping for nothing in the future except the welfare of this little orphan girl. Nobody cares for me, and I have cared for nobody, but I am ready to do you any service in my power. I have learned a secret to-night, and--who knows?--perhaps life has changed for me during the last hour."