She was naturally cheerful and brave--an angel,
indeed, whom the sorrows of humanity had not yet dared to touch. She
knew not what it was to suffer; she knew not what it was to distrust
and dread. This, indeed, was the first trial of her life, and it was I,
brute that I was, who made her undergo it. I took her for a gipsy, and
she was an angel of purity.
She was my young cousin (or aunt, after the Breton fashion), Edmee de
Mauprat, the daughter of M. Hubert, my great-uncle (again in the Breton
fashion), known as the Chevalier--he who had sought release from the
Order of Malta that he might marry, though already somewhat advanced
in years. My cousin was the same age as myself; at least, there was
a difference of only a few months between us. Both of us were now
seventeen, and this was our first interview. She whom I ought to have
protected at the peril of my life against the world was now standing
before me trembling and terror-stricken, like a victim before the
executioner.
She made a great effort, and approaching me as I walked about the hall
deep in thought, she explained who she was, adding:
"It is impossible that you can be an infamous creature like all these
brigands whom I have just seen, and of whose hideous life I have often
heard. You are young; your mother was good and wise. My father wanted to
adopt you and bring you up as his son. Even to-day he is still full of
grief at not being able to draw you out of the abyss in which you lie.
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