"
"I give you my honor to marry her, if I live."
"You take a load off me; may Heaven reward you. In one hour those poor
women, whose support I had promised to be, will lose their protector;
but I give them another in you. We shall not leave that family in tears,
Rose in shame, and your child without a name."
Dujardin stared at the speaker. What new and devilish deception was
this?
"My child!" he faltered. "What child?"
"Ah," said Raynal, "what a fool I was! That is the first thing I ought
to have told you. Poor little fellow! I surprised him in his cradle; his
mother and Josephine were rocking him, and singing over him. Oh! it was
a scene, I can tell you. My poor wife had been ill for some time, and
was so weakened by it, that I frightened her into a fit, stealing a
march on her that way. She fainted away. Perhaps it is as well she did;
for I--I did not know what to think; it looked ugly; but while she lay
at our feet insensible, I forced the truth from Rose; she owned the boy
was hers."
While Raynal told him this strange story, Camille turned hot and cold.
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