"Let that thought console you, Jocelyn," observed Marguerite. "Your father considered you an exemplary son." "I know it, Dame Marguerite; and the thought does afford me some consolation in my bereavement. Before dying my father gave me a proof of the confidence he placed in my respect and affection. He made an important revelation." "On what?" asked Marguerite. "I told you of the profound interest that Mazurec inspired me with, Mazurec, the husband of Caillet's daughter," answered Jocelyn with deep emotion. "Well, then, after the last revelation made by my father, I can doubt no longer that Mazurec is my brother!" "Are you certain?" Marguerite and Denise cried in one voice. "That unfortunate lad, that martyr, your brother!" "Is it possible?" asked Caillet in turn and no less astonished. "How do you know it?" "When my mother died," explained Jocelyn, "I was a child and my father quite young. One evening, some four or five years later, as he was entering Paris, he found on the road a young peasant woman lying on the ground unconscious and bleeding of a wound. Moved by compassion, he raised and carried her to a neighboring inn. The young woman regained consciousness and informed him that she was a vassal of the Bishop of Paris, and that, having lost her mother since early childhood, she was then fleeing from a merciless step-mother who that same day came near killing her. The young woman was named Gervaise. Touched by her youth, her misfortune and her beauty, my father apprenticed her to a washerwoman who lived near us. He often visited his protegé. Both loved each other, and one day Gervaise informed my father that she carried under her heart the fruit of their joint indiscretion. My father, as an honest man, realized his duty, but being at that season forced to leave Paris on a trip, promised Gervaise under oath to marry her upon his return. Several weeks, a month and two passed by and my father did not return--" "But he was a man incapable of violating a sacred promise," interjected Marguerite. "During the long years that we knew your father, we learned to appreciate the straightforwardness of his nature and the goodness of his heart. Undoubtedly some serious accident must have kept him away." "Almost at the end of his journey, my father was attacked by a band of highwaymen. He was robbed, wounded and left for dead on the road." "And that prevented him from communicating with Gervaise?" "He was picked up and for a long time he languished between life and death. The unhappy woman thought herself deserted. The consequences of her error began to betray her weakness. A prey to shame and despair she left Paris!" "Her condition should have earned the sympathy of people."