Gently the boy loosened his clasp of the Cardinal’s hands.

“Then I have found a friend!” he said,—­“That is very strange!” He paused, and the smile that had once before brightened his countenance shone again like a veritable flash of sunlight—­“You have the right to know my name, and if you choose, to call me by it,—­it is Manuel.”

“Manuel!” echoed the Cardinal—­“No more than that?”

“No more than that,” replied the boy gravely—­“I am one of the world’s waifs and strays,—­one name suffices me.”

There followed a brief pause, in which the old man and the child looked at each other full and steadfastly, and once again an inexplicable nervous trembling seized the Cardinal.  Overcoming this with an effort, he said softly,—­

“Then—­Manuel!—­good night!  Sleep—­and Our Lady’s blessing be upon you!”

Signing the cross in air he retired, carefully shutting the door and leaving his new-found charge to rest.  When he was once by himself in the next room, however, he made no attempt to sleep,—­he merely drew a chair to the window and sat down, full of thoughts which utterly absorbed him.  There was nothing unusual, surely, in his finding a small lost boy and giving him a night’s lodging?—­then why was he so affected by it?  He could not tell.  He fully realized that the plaintive beauty of the child had its share in the powerful attraction he felt,—­but there was something else in the nature of his emotion which he found it impossible to define.  It was as though some great blankness in his life had been suddenly filled;—­as if the boy whom he had found solitary and weeping within the porch of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, belonged to him in some mysterious way and was linked to his life so closely and completely as to make parting impossible.  But what a fantastic notion!  Viewed by the light of calm reason, there was nothing in the occurrence to give rise to any such sentiment.  Here was a poor little wayfarer, evidently without parents, home, or friends,—­and the Cardinal had given him a night’s lodging, and to-morrow—­yes, to-morrow, he would give him food and warm clothing and money,—­and perhaps a recommendation to the Archbishop in order that he might get a chance of free education and employment in Rouen, while proper enquiries were being made about him.  That was the soberly prosaic and commonplace view to take of the matter.  The personality of the little fellow was intensely winning,—­but after all, that had nothing to do with the facts of the case.  He was a waif and stray, as he himself had said; his name, so far as he seemed to know it, was Manuel,—­an ordinary name enough in France,—­and his age might be about twelve,—­not more.  Something could be done for him,—­something should be done for him before the Cardinal parted with him.  But this idea of “parting” was just what seemed so difficult to contemplate!  Puzzled beyond measure at the strange state of mind in which he found himself, Felix Bonpre went over