"But how pale and agitated you are, my boy!" said the marshal's father, looking round with astonishment."What is the matter?"
"What is the matter?" cried Dagobert, in despair, as he approached the foreman."The matter is that they would rob your granddaughters, and that I have brought them from the depths of Siberia only to witness this shameful deed!"
"Eh?" cried the old workman, trying to recognize the soldiers face, "you are then--"
"Dagobert."
"You--the generous, devoted friend of my son!" cried the marshal's father, pressing the hands of Dagobert in his own with strong emotion;
"but did you not speak of Simon's daughter?"
"Of his daughters; for he is more fortunate than he imagines," said Dagobert."The poor children are twins."
"And where are they?" asked the old man.
"In a convent."
"In a convent?"
"Yes; by the treachery of this man, who keeps them there in order to disinherit them."
"What man?"
"The Marquis d'Aigrigny."
"My son's mortal enemy!" cried the old workman, as he threw a glance of aversion at Father d'Aigrigny, whose audacity did not fail him.
"And that is not all," added Agricola."M.Hardy, my worthy and excellent master, has also lost his right to this immense inheritance."
"What?" cried Marshal Simon's father; "but M.Hardy did not know that such important interests were concerned.He set out hastily to join one of his friends who was in want of him."
At each of these successive revelations, Samuel felt his trouble increase: but he could only sigh over it, for the will of the testator was couched, unhappily, in precise and positive terms.