"Now, Monsieur, you are anxious, I know, that I keep my promise of the morning."
"Without doubt. Come here, my friend, sit near me and listen attentively to a long story."
"_Mais oui_. It was difficult, but I have brought him to my way of thinking. I am certain that it was an error in the first place not taking you into our confidence. _Eh bien_! Tell me, do you know how your foster-sister came to be in the charge of your mother at the Inn at the Red Oak?"
"Yes, I know what my mother has told me. The child was abandoned to her rather than left in her charge."
"_Mais non_" said Madame de la Fontaine; "General Pointelle was impelled to act as he did by the strongest motives,--nothing less than the tremendous task, undertaken for his country, to liberate the Emperor Napoleon from Elba. General Pointelle was a soldier,--more, he was a maréchal of the Empire; the greatest responsibilities devolved upon him. It was impossible for him to be burdened with a child."
"But why, madame, did he not take my mother into his confidence?"
"Secrecy was imperative, monsieur. Even to this day, you do not know who General Pointelle actually was. His was a name well-known in France, glorious in the annals of the Empire; a name, too, familiar to you in a somewhat different connection. 'General Pointelle' was the _nom-de-guerre_, as it were, of François, Marquis de Boisdhyver, maréchal de France."
"François! you say, _François_!" exclaimed Dan.
"_Mais oui_, monsieur; but that should hardly astonish you so much as the fact that he was a Boisdhyver. Why are you surprised?"
"Simply, madame," exclaimed Dan hastily, "by the fact that it is the same name as that of our Marquis."
"Not quite," corrected the lady; "our Marquis--as you say--is Marie-Anne-Timélon-Armand de Boisdhyver, the General's younger brother."
"Yes, the uncle of Nancy Frost, or of Eloise de Boisdhyver."
"_Eh bien_, monsieur. General Pointelle--the maréchal de Boisdhyver,--left the Inn at the Red Oak upon a mission for the Emperor, then at Elba. _Hélas_! that mission ended with disaster after the Hundred Days; for, as you know, the Emperor was sent in exile to St. Helena; and, as you may not know, the Maréchal de Boisdhyver was killed on the plains of Waterloo. _Allons_; when he left Deal, he concealed in a hidden chamber, which one enters, I believe, from a room you call the Oak Parlour, a large treasure, of jewels and gold. This treasure, saved from the _debacle_ in France, he had brought with him to America, and he hid it in the Inn, for the future of his little daughter Eloise. You remember that your mother was to hear something of advantage to her and the child, did not the General return. It was the secret of the treasure and the directions to find it. Well, Monsieur, at Waterloo, you must know, the Maréchal and his brother, the present Marquis, fought side by side. François de Boisdhyver fell, nobly fighting for the glory of France; Marie-Anne had the good fortune to preserve his life, but was taken prisoner by the English. Before the Maréchal received his death wound, the two brothers spoke with each other for the last time. In that moment, monsieur, the Marquis François revealed to the Marquis Marie-Anne that he had abandoned his daughter in America and that he had concealed in your old inn a treasure sufficient to provide for her future. He charged his brother to go to America, if he survived the battle; claim the little Eloise; rescue the treasure, and return with her to France and restore the fallen fortunes of the House of Boisdhyver.