we are to leave this country. Pauline has wearied Heaven with prayers for your safety, and as I have felt my strength decay daily, I too have prayed for your return, for I have a secret to confide to you that weighs heavily upon my spirits."
"To confide to us?" cried Edric.
"Yes, to you," said M. de Mallet. "It is true I have not known you long; but some circumstances make men better acquainted in a month than the ordinary routine of life does in years. Thus, the kindness with which you have treated me, and the important events in which I have seen you engaged, have made me consider you as old and tried friends, and have induced me to confide to you a secret which I have hitherto guarded with the utmost scrupulous fidelity."
"What can you mean?" asked Edric in astonishment; whilst Pauline gazed upon her father with a look of the most intense anxiety.
"Pauline is not my child!" said the old man impressively. Pauline uttered a cry of agony that thrilled through the souls of her auditors, and threw herself at his feet, looking up in his
