[Illustration: "HE WAS IN A FEW MINUTES WITHIN CAMILLE'S ROOM."]
"Who are you? and what are you doing here?" thundered a wrathful voice. It was that of Uncle Giraud, who at that moment entered the room, and bestowed upon the intruder a torrent of abuse. The Marquis calmly wrote something upon the board, and handed it to Uncle Giraud, who read with amazement the following words: "I love Mademoiselle Camille, and wish to marry her. I am the Marquis de Maubray; will you give her to me?"
"Well!" remarked he to himself, as he recognised the youth he had seen at the opera--"for going straight to the point, and getting through their business quickly, I never saw the like of these dumb folk!"
The course of true love, for once, ran smooth. The Chevalier's consent to this highly desirable match for his daughter was easily obtained. Much more difficult was it to convince him that it was possible to teach deaf mutes to read and write. Seeing, however, is believing. One day, two or three years after the marriage, the Chevalier received a letter from Camille, which began thus:--"Oh, father! I can speak, not with my mouth, but with my hand."
She told him how she had learned to do this, and to whom she owed her new-born speech--the good Abbé de l'Epée. She described to him the beauty of her baby, and affectionately besought him to pay a visit to his daughter and grandchild.
After receiving this letter, the Chevalier hesitated for a long time.
"Go, by all means," advised Uncle Giraud, when he was consulted. "Do you not reproach yourself continually for having deserted your wife at the ball? Will you also forsake your child, who longs to see you? Let us go together. I consider it most ungrateful of her not to have included me in the invitation."
"He is right," reflected the Chevalier. "I brought cruel and needless suffering upon the best of women. I left her to die a frightful death, when I ought to have been her preserver. If this visit to Camille involves some pain to myself, that is but a merited chastisement. I will taste this bitter pleasure; I will go and see my child."
In the pretty boudoir of a house in the Faubourg St. Germain, Camille's father and uncle found Camille and Pierre. Upon the table lay books and sketches. The husband was reading, the wife embroidering, the child playing on the carpet. At sight of the welcome visitors the Marquis rose, while Camille ran to her father, who, as he embraced her tenderly, could not restrain his tears. Then the Chevalier's earnest look was bent upon the child. In spite of himself, some shadow of the repugnance he had formerly felt for the infirmity of Camille stirred afresh at sight of this small being who had doubtless inherited that infirmity.