"Oh, father," murmured the maid in a fainting voice, "this encounter is our sentence of death."
"The sentence of our ruin, but not of our death. Calm yourself, poor child, the seigneur of Plouernel knows not that our obscure family, descended from the Gallic chieftain Joel, who made a head against Cæsar, has been at strife with his own all through the past ages, since the Frankish conquest. But when that bailiff pronounced the name of Neroweg VI, which I had not heard mention during this ill-starred journey, and when, questioned by me, that man answered his master belonged to the ancient Frankish family of Neroweg, established in Auvergne since the conquest of Gaul by Clovis, I no longer had any doubts, and, despite myself, I shuddered at the recollection of our family records, which our father once read to us at Laon, and that have remained in that country, in the hands of Gildas, my elder brother."
"Oh, why did our grandfather leave Brittany. Our family lived there so happy."
"Dear child, our grandfather, who lived near the sacred stones of Karnac, the cradle of our family, could no longer endure the oppression of the Breton seigneurs, who had grown to be as cruel as their Frankish fellows. He sold his little havings, and embarked with his wife at Vannes on a merchant vessel bound for Abbeville. He settled down in that city, where he set up a modest trade. Later, my father moved into the province of Picardy, and settled at Laon, where my elder brother Gildas still carries on the currier's trade. Coming by sea from Abbeville to Nantes to traffic in the articles of our trade, manufactured in Laon, I became acquainted with your mother, the daughter of the merchant to whom I was directed. Her parents did not wish to part from her. They made me promise not to leave Nantes. I became the partner of my wife's father, and grew rich in the business. Your mother then died. You were still a child. Her death was the greatest sorrow of my life. But you were left to me. You grew in gracefulness and beauty. Everything smiled upon me again. I was happy. And behold us now, while yielding to the wishes of your grandmother--" and Bezenecq interrupted himself with a cry of despair: "Oh, it is frightful!"