“The mother caressed her, smoothing back the black hair from her temples, as if she had been a child. “‘Tell us, daughter, tell us all,’ she whispered, tenderly. “Elsie started up. Fire sparkled through the tears in her eyes. But quickly as it had kindled, the angry light went out; and sinking to her mother’s bosom, she answered, amid her sobs,— “‘Mother, they have denounced me, they have covered me with scorn.’ “‘They—my child! Of whom are you speaking?’ “‘Of him—my husband—of De Marke and the French woman, who has poisoned his heart against me. Oh! mother, if she had never entered this house—if she never had.’ “‘But your child, our grandson?’ I inquired, after she had grown calmer. “Elsie shook her head wearily. ‘I asked for him, father. I begged on my knees that they would give me my child. I prayed, I wept, I went mad before them; but it was all of no use. My boy—my boy!’ “She broke off moaning, and began to rock herself to and fro, calling out, in tones of piteous tenderness, ‘My boy—my boy!’ “Thus we got the history of her wrongs, in snatches, among tears and tender wailings over the happiness torn from her. “It was true, De Marke had turned her from his door; and the Frenchwoman, her accuser, remained behind. When the sunrise sent its gleams of gold aslant the snowdrifts around us, we had gathered all the facts that she could relate. That French fiend, by cunning and falsehood, had separated my daughter from her husband. Elsie had come back to us, branded and denounced, but innocent as the angels. “I sought De Marke, in order to defend my child; but he would not receive me. I wrote to him, he sent my letters back unanswered. But Elsie would not believe him in earnest. She, poor child, still had her dreams and her delusions. They were wearing her to a shadow; but she could not give them up. ‘The child,’ she would plead, ‘surely he will give back my child.’ “Thus, day after day, she lived and hoped on. “But the end came at last. De Marke entered proceedings for a divorce. I employed counsel. I spent half my substance in defending the honor of my child. But it was all in vain. The divorce was granted, and our daughter branded forever—forever separated from her husband and child. Now listen. That Frenchwoman was the principal witness against Elsie, and in six months De Marke married her. It was this news which drove our daughter wholly mad.” The old man ceased. The perspiration stood in drops on his forehead. This renewal of sorrow had exhausted him. Catharine looked at him sadly. “Forgive me,” she said. “I have given you pain. But for this knowledge, I too must have gone mad! One word more. This Frenchwoman? Have you seen her?” “Yes,” answered the old man, “was the woman, you remember her. See how sin levels down the soul. Tell me, is not the fate of my child preferable to that?”