"But, alas! for all this, Aloyse, I am alone in the world. This great lord is nothing but a poor orphan, and the descendant of so many royal ancestors has no father. My poor father! I can only weep just now, Aloyse. And my mother, too,--both dead! Oh, do tell me of them, so that I may know what they were like now that I know that I am their son! Come, begin with my father. How did he die? Tell me all about it." Aloyse remained dumb. Gabriel looked at her in amazement. "I ask you to tell me, nurse," he said again, "how my father died." "Monseigneur, God alone can tell you!" said she. "One day Jacques de Montgommery left the hotel where he was then living, in the Rue des Jardins St. Paul in Paris. He never came back to it. His friends and his cousins sought for him, but to no purpose. He had disappeared, Monseigneur! King François I. ordered an inquiry, which came to nothing. His enemies, if he fell a victim to treachery, were either very cunning or very powerful. You have no father, Monseigneur; and yet the tomb of Jacques de Montgommery is missing in the chapel of your château, for he has never been found, living or dead!" "That is because it was not his son who sought him!" cried Gabriel. "Ah, nurse, why have you kept quiet so long? Did you hide the secret of my birth from me because it would have been my duty either to save my father or to avenge him?" "No; but because it was my duty to save yourself, Monseigneur. Listen! Do you know what the last words were that were uttered by my husband, brave Perrot Travigny, who had a religious devotion to your family? 'Wife,' said he, a few minutes before he breathed his last, 'don't even wait till I am buried; just close my eyes, and then leave Paris with the child as fast as ever you can. You will go to Montgommery; not to the château, but to the house which belongs to us, thanks to Monseigneur's bounty!