"Yes, Monsieur. Oh! but I could not endure the torture any longer, and not seeing the expected release any nearer, I would have spoken, I would have spoken to escape that cell, that sense of suffocation, I endured there. It seemed to me, however, that I owed it to my dead friend not to reveal his secret to any one, not even to you. I shall never forget Rovère's joy, when relieved of the burden, by the confidence which he had reposed in me, he said to me, that now that she who was his daughter, and was poor, living at Blois only on the pension of a retired officer to whom she had appointed herself nurse, knowing that she was not his daughter, this innocent child, who was paying with a life of devotion for the sins of two guilty ones, would at least have happiness at last. "She is young, and the one for whom she cares cannot live always. My fortune will give her a dowry. And then!" "It was to me to whom he confided this fortune. He had very little money with his notary. Erratic and distrustful, Rovère kept his valuables in his safe, as he kept his books in his library. It seemed that he was a collector, picking up all kinds of things. Avaricious? No; but he wished to have about him, under his hand, everything which belonged to him. He possibly may have wished to give what he had directly to the one to whom it seemed good to him to give it, and confide it to me in trust. "I regret not having asked him directly that day what he counted on doing with his fortune and how he intended enriching his child, whom he had not the right to recognize. I dared, or, rather, I did not think of it. I experienced a strong emotion when I saw my friend enfeebled and almost dying. I had known him so different, so handsome. Oh! those poor, sad, restless eyes, that lowered voice, as if he feared an enemy was listening! Illness had quickly, brutally changed that vigorous man, suddenly old and timorous. "I went away from that first interview much distressed, carrying a secret which seemed to me a heavy and cruel one; and which made me think of the uselessness, the wickedness, the vain loves of a ruined life. But I felt that Rovère owed truly his fortune to that girl who, the next day after the death of the one whom she had piously attended, found herself poor and isolated in a little house in a steep street, near the Château, above Blois. I felt that, whatever this unknown father left, ought not to go to distant relatives, who cared nothing for him; did not even know him; were ignorant of his sufferings and perhaps even of his existence, and who by law would inherit. "A dying man, yes! There could be no question about it, and Dr. Vilandry, whom I begged to accompany me to see my friend, did not hide it from me. Rovère was dying of a kidney difficulty, which had made rapid progress. "It was necessary, then, since he was not alone in the world, that he should think of the one of whom he had spoken and whom he loved.