"It isn't the promise I made to him that I mean, but the promise I made to you." She smiled brightly. "You know what I think of that. I told you long ago." She turned her head away, for a bright colour had come to her cheek. "You have done great things, Prince," she added in a low tone. He flashed a look of inquiry at her. To his ear there was in her voice a little touch--not of bitterness, but of something, as it were, muffled or reserved. Was she thinking how he had robbed her child of the chance of heritage at Bercy? He did not reply, but, stooping, put the watch again to the child's ear. "There you are, monseigneur!" "Why do you call him monseigneur?" she asked. "Guilbert has no title to your compliment." A look half-amused, half-perplexed, crossed over Detricand's face. "Do you think so?" he said musingly. Stooping once more, he said to the child: "Would you like the watch?" and added quickly, "you shall have it when you're grown up." "Do you really mean it?" asked Guida, delighted; "do you really mean to give him the grandpethe's watch one day?" "Oh yes, at least that--one day. But I have something more," he added quickly--" something more for you;" and he drew from his pocket a miniature set in rubies and diamonds. "I have brought you this from the Duc de Mauban--and this," he went on, taking a letter from his pocket, and handing it with the gift. "The Duke thought you might care to have it. It is the face of your godmother, the Duchess Guidabaldine." Guida looked at the miniature earnestly, and then said a little wistfully: "How beautiful a face--but the jewels are much too fine for me! What should one do here with rubies and diamonds? How can I thank the Duke!" "Not so. He will thank you for accepting it. He begged me to say--as you will find by his letter to you--that if you will but go to him upon a visit with this great man here"--pointing to the child with a smile-- "he will count it one of the greatest pleasures of his life. He is too old to come to you, but he begs you to go to him--the Chevalier, and you, and Guilbert here. He is much alone now, and he longs for a little of that friendship which can be given by but few in this world. He counts upon your coming, for I said I thought you would." "It would seem so strange," she answered, "to go from this cottage of my childhood, to which I have come back in peace at last--from this kitchen, to the chateau of the Duc de Mauban." "But it was sure to come," he answered. "This kitchen to which I come also to redeem my pledge after seven years, it belongs to one part of your life. But there is another part to fulfil,"--he stooped and passed his hands over the curls of the child," and for your child here you should do it." "I do not find your meaning," she said after a moment's deliberation. "I do not know what you would have me understand."