"Father," she said, "you didn't talk like that last night when you came home from the wine shop! Then you adored this little dwarf; you shed tears of regret because someone had beaten him." "Really! I must have been drunk then?" "Why, yes! rather." "I must cure myself of that failing." "Oh! father, a single failing may be excused in one who has so many good qualities; the world is not perfect." "You spoil me, my child; but as for you, I know of none but good qualities, not a single fault!" "Do you remember, father, that someone knocked last night, near midnight, during the storm?" "No, I don't remember." "But you do remember at least the horrible storm, that lasted almost all night?" "Very vaguely; why?" "If someone had come to ask me for hospitality in that weather, should I have done wrong to grant it?" "It is never wrong to do a good deed, even though it fall upon ingrates." "Well, father, someone came--all drenched and shivering; that person was very unhappy--with no place to go for shelter. And so I took her in and gave her a night's lodging; she passed the night in this house, and is here still." "She is here--where, pray?" "In my room." "In your room!" And Master Hugonnet's brows began to contract, but Ambroisine hastened to add: "That person, father, is Bathilde, the daughter of your friend Landry." "Landry's daughter here! and she passed the night here, you say? What on earth has happened at her father's house? What's the trouble?" "Oh! father, some very terrible things have happened in your friend's house." "Tell me all about it, my child." Ambroisine, with downcast eyes, told the story of Bathilde's liaison with the young Comte de Marvejols, of Dame Ragonde's return, and of the terrible catastrophe which had followed the discovery of that mystery. Hugonnet listened, his face betraying the interest he took in the story; at times he clenched his fists, his features contracted, his eyes blazed with anger; but at the last, when Ambroisine described the condition in which she had found Bathilde in the street, at midnight, when the rain was falling in torrents and the thunder roaring almost incessantly, then Master Hugonnet could no longer resist his emotion; tears dimmed his eyes, and he could not help muttering: "Ah! that was too much! they were too harsh! they were without pity in their anger!--Why, the poor girl might have died!" "Yes, indeed! a little later, and I should have found her dead!" cried Ambroisine, putting her arm about her father's neck. "Ah! you would not be the man to drive your daughter away like that, without pity, without mercy--to turn her out of doors, where she would be exposed to the fury of such a storm! No, no! no matter how guilty I might be, you would not treat me so, father! you love your girl too dearly!" Hugonnet had not the strength to reply; he could do no more than wipe his eyes and kiss his daughter.