"Your lordship, it is I who have been robbed!"
"Ah! some more of your trouble-making. Why are you forever bringing the family name into some ill-sounding affair?"
"But, uncle, it is true that I am a victim. There is the very girl who robbed me!" he cried, pointing to Arline. The Count looked pityingly at her.
"What--the pretty girl I saw in the square? So young and innocent a face!"
"However that may be, she has stolen my medallion: we found it upon her!"
"Can this be true, my child?" the Count asked gently.
"No, your lordship. I have done nothing wrong; but alas! there is no one to help me."
At that the Count became more distressed. The thought of his own child returned to him. She might be somewhere as hardly pressed and as helpless as this young gipsy girl.
"We can prove her guilty," Florestein persisted.
"Tell me your story, my child. I shall try to do you justice," the Count urged, looking kindly at Arline.
"The Queen of our tribe gave me that medallion. I do not know how she possessed herself of it, unless----" Arline suddenly remembered the scene at her wedding, and half guessed the truth. "Your lordship, I cannot prove it, but I believe she gave me a medallion which she knew to be stolen, in order to revenge herself upon me for giving her displeasure last night!" The old Count gazed thoughtfully at her. He believed her story: she looked truthful, and her tone was honest.
"I believe you," he answered, at last, "yet since you cannot prove this, I have no alternative but to hand you over to justice."
"Then, sir, I can deliver myself!" she cried, drawing a dagger, and was about to plunge it into her heart when the horrified Count sprung forward and stopped her. As he seized her arm, he glanced at the scar upon it: then started and looked closely at her face. Again the face of his lost daughter was before him. He looked at the painting of the little girl upon the wall, and again at Arline. They were so like that he could doubt no longer.
"Tell me--how did you come by that scar upon your arm--speak the truth, because my very life hangs upon it, my child." By this time the whole mob had gathered excitedly about the girl and the old judge.
"When I was six years old a wild deer wounded me--" the Count nearly fainted with hope--"I was saved and--" at this moment, Thaddeus, having shaken off his guard, rushed in to help Arline. She cried out happily and pointed to him. "It was he who saved my life," she said. "It was Thaddeus!" The Count recognized the man who had refused to drink the health of the Emperor at the banquet years before! Clearly it was his own child who had been brought before him!