"Tiresome! it is—it is—oh, dear commandant, Heaven bless you for coming!"

"Ta! ta! ta! I am come on my own business."

"All the better. I have nothing to do; that is what kills me. I'm eating my own heart."

"Cannibal! Well, my lad, since you are in that humor, cheer up, for I bring you a job, and a tough one; it has puzzled me."

"What is it, commandant? What is it?"

"Well, do you know a house and a family called Beaurepaire?"

"Do I know Beaurepaire?"

And the pale youth turned very red; and stared with awe at this wizard of a commandant. He thought he was going to be called over the coals for frequenting a disaffected family. "Well," said Raynal, "I have been and bought this Beaurepaire."

Edouard uttered a loud exclamation. "It was YOU bought it! she never told me that."

"Yes," said Raynal, "I am the culprit; and we have fixed on you to undo my work without hurting their pride too much, poor souls; but let us begin with the facts."

Then Raynal told him my story after his fashion. Of course I shall not go and print his version; you might like his concise way better than my verbose; and I'm not here to hold up any man's coat-tails. Short as he made it, Edouard's eyes were moist more than once; and at the end he caught Raynal's hand and kissed it. Then he asked time to reflect; "for," said he, "I must try and be just."

"I'll give you an hour," said Raynal, with an air of grand munificence. The only treasure he valued was time.

In less than an hour Edouard had solved the knot, to his entire satisfaction; he even gave the commandant particular instructions for carrying out his sovereign decree. Raynal received these orders from his subordinate with that simplicity which formed part of his amazing character, and rode home relieved of all responsibility in the matter.

COMMANDANT RAYNAL TO MADEMOISELLE DE BEAUREPAIRE.

Mademoiselle,—Before I could find time to write to our referee, news came in that he had just broken his arm;—

"Oh! oh, dear! our poor Edouard!"

And if poor Edouard had seen the pale faces, and heard the faltering accents, it would have reconciled him to his broken arm almost. This hand-grenade the commandant had dropped so coolly among them, it was a long while ere they could recover from it enough to read the rest of the letter,—

So I rode over to him, and found him on his back, fretting for want of something to do. I told him the whole story. He undertook the business. I have received his instructions, and next week shall be at his quarters to clear off his arrears of business, and make acquaintance with all your family, if they permit.

RAYNAL.

As the latter part of this letter seemed to require a reply, the baroness wrote a polite note, and Jacintha sent Dard to leave it for the commandant at Riviere's lodgings. But first they all sat down and wrote kind and pitying and soothing letters to Edouard. Need I say these letters fell upon him like balm?

They all inquired carelessly in their postscripts what he had decided as their referee. He replied mysteriously that they would know that in a week or two. Meantime, all he thought it prudent to tell them was that he had endeavored to be just to both parties.

"Little solemn puppy," said Rose, and was racked with curiosity.

Next week Raynal called on the baroness. She received him alone. They talked about Madame Raynal. The next day he dined with the whole party, and the commandant's manners were the opposite of what the baroness had inculcated. But she had a strong prejudice in his favor. Had her feelings been the other way his brusquerie would have shocked her. It amused her. If people's hearts are with you, THAT for their heads!

He came every day for a week, chatted with the baroness, walked with the young ladies; and when after work he came over in the evening, Rose used to cross-examine him, and out came such descriptions of battles and sieges, such heroism and such simplicity mixed, as made the evening pass delightfully. On these occasions the young ladies fixed their glowing eyes on him, and drank in his character as well as his narrative, in which were fewer "I's" than in anything of the sort you ever read or heard.

At length Rose contrived to draw him aside, and, hiding her curiosity under feigned nonchalance, asked him what the referee had decided. He told her that was a secret for the present.

"Well, but," said Rose, "not from me. Edouard and I have no secrets."

"Come, that's good," said Raynal. "Why, you are the very one he warned me against the most; said you were as curious as Mother Eve, and as sharp as her needle."

"Then he is a little scurrilous traitor," cried Rose, turning very red. "So that is how he talks of me behind my back, and calls me an angel to my face; I'll pay him for this. Do tell me, commandant; never mind what HE says."

"What! disobey orders?"

"Orders? to you from that boy!"

"Oh!" said Raynal, "for that matter, we soldiers are used to command one moment, and obey the next."

In a word, this military pedant was impracticable, and Rose gave him up in disgust, and began to call up a sulky look when the other two sang his praises. For the old lady pronounced him charming, and Josephine said he was a man of crystal; never said a word he did not mean, and she wished she was like him. But the baroness thought this was going a little too far.

"No, thank you," said she hastily; "he is a man, a thorough man. He would make an intolerable woman. A fine life if one had a parcel of women about, all blurting out their real minds every moment, and never smoothing matters."

"Mamma, what a horrid picture!" chuckled Rose.

She then proposed that at his next visit they should all three make an earnest appeal to him to let them know what Edouard had decided.

But Josephine begged to be excused, feared it would be hardly delicate; and said languidly that for her part she felt they were in good hands, and prescribed patience. The baroness acquiesced, and poor Rose and her curiosity were baffled on every side.

At last, one fine day, her torments were relieved without any further exertion on her part. Jacintha bounced into the drawing-room with a notice that the commandant wanted to speak to Josephine a minute out in the Pleasaunce.

"How droll he is," said Rose; "fancy sending in for a young lady like that. Don't go, Josephine; how, he would stare."

"My dear, I no more dare disobey him than if I was one of his soldiers." And she laid down her work, and rose quietly to do what she was bid.

"Well," said Rose, superciliously, "go to your commanding officer. And, O Josephine, if you are worth anything at all, do get out of him what that Edouard has settled."

Josephine kissed her, and promised to try. After the first salutation, there was a certain hesitation about Raynal which Josephine had never seen a trace of in him before; so, to put him at his ease, and at the same time keep her promise to Rose, she asked timidly if their mutual friend had been able to suggest anything.

"What! don't you know that I have been acting all along upon his instructions?" answered Raynal.

"No, indeed! and you have not told us what he advised."

"Told you? why, of course not; they were secret instructions. I have obeyed one set, and now I come to the other; and there is the difficulty, being a kind of warfare I know nothing about."

"It must be savage warfare, then," suggested the lady politely.

"Not a bit of it. Now, who would have thought I was such a coward?"

Josephine was mystified; however, she made a shrewd guess. "Do you fear a repulse from any one of us? Then, I suppose, you meditate some extravagant act of generosity."

"Not I."

"Of delicacy, then."

"Just the reverse. Confound the young dog! why is he not here to help me?"

"But, after all," suggested Josephine, "you have only to carry out his instructions."

"That is true! that is true! but when a fellow is a coward, a poltroon, and all that sort of thing."

This repeated assertion of cowardice on the part of the living Damascus blade that stood bolt-upright before her, struck Josephine as so funny that she laughed merrily, and bade him fancy it was only a fort he was attacking instead of the terrible Josephine; whom none but heroes feared, she assured him.

This encouragement, uttered in jest, was taken in earnest. The soldier thanked her, and rallied visibly at the comparison. "All right," said he, "as you say, it is only a fort—so—mademoiselle!"

"Monsieur!"

"Hum! will you lend me your hand for a moment?"

"My hand! what for? there," and she put it out an inch a minute. He took it, and inspected it closely.

"A charming hand; the hand of a virtuous woman?"

"Yes," said Josephine as cool as a cucumber, too sublimely and absurdly innocent even to blush.

"Is it your own?"

"Sir!" She blushed at that, I can tell you.

"Because if it was, I would ask you to give it me. (I've fired the first shot anyway.)"

Josephine whipped her hand off his palm, where it lay like cream spilt on a trencher.

"Ah! I see; you are not free: you have a lover."

"No, no!" cried Josephine in distress; "I love nobody but my mother and sister: I never shall."

"Your mother," cried Raynal; "that reminds me; he told me to ask her; by Jove, I think he told me to ask her first;" and Raynal up with his scabbard and was making off.

Josephine begged him to do nothing of the kind.

"I can save you the trouble," said she.

"Ah, but my instructions! my instructions!" cried the military pedant, and ran off into the house, and left Josephine "planted there," as they say in France.

Raynal demanded a private interview of the baroness so significantly and unceremoniously that Rose had no alternative but to retire, but not without a glance of defiance at the bear. She ran straight, without her bonnet, into the Pleasaunce to slake her curiosity at Josephine. That young lady was walking pensively, but turned at sight of Rose, and the sisters came together with a clash of tongues.

"O Rose! he has"—

"Oh!"

So nimbly does the female mind run on its little beaten tracks, that it took no more than those syllables for even these innocent young women to communicate that Raynal had popped.

Josephine apologized for this weakness in a hero. "It wasn't his fault," said she. "It is your Edouard who set him to do it."

"My Edouard? Don't talk in that horrid way: I have no Edouard. You said 'no' of course."

"Something of the kind."

"What, did you not say 'no' plump?"

"I did not say it brutally, dear."

"Josephine, you frighten me. I know you can't say 'no' to any one; and if you don't say 'no' plump to such a man as this, you might as well say 'yes.'"

"Well, love," said Josephine, "you know our mother will relieve me of this; what a comfort to have a mother!"

They waited for Raynal's departure, to go to the baroness. They had to wait a long time. Moreover, when he did leave the chateau he came straight into the Pleasaunce. At sight of him Rose seized Josephine tight and bade her hold her tongue, as she could not say "no" plump to any one. Josephine was far from raising any objection to the arrangement.

"Monsieur," said Rose, before he could get a word out, "even if she had not declined, I could not consent."

Raynal tapped his forehead reflectively, and drew forth from memory that he had no instructions whatever to ask HER consent.

She colored high, but returned to the charge.

"Is her own consent to be dispensed with too? She declined the honor, did she not?"

"Of course she did; but this was anticipated in my instructions. I am to be sure and not take the first two or three refusals."

"O Josephine, look at that insolent boy: he has found you out."

"Insolent boy!" cried Raynal; "why, it is the referee of your own choosing, and as well behaved a lad as ever I saw, and a zealous officer."

"My kind friends," put in Josephine with a sweet languor, "I cannot let you quarrel about a straw."

"It is not about a straw," said Raynal, "it is about you."

"The distinction involves a compliment, sir," said Josephine; then she turned to Rose, "Is it possible you do not see Monsieur Raynal's strange proposal in its true light? and you so shrewd in general. He has no personal feeling whatever in this eccentric proceeding: he wants to make us all happy, especially my mother, without seeming to lay us under too great an obligation. Surely good-nature was never carried so far before; ha, ha! Monsieur, I will encumber you with my friendship forever, if you permit me, but farther than that I will not abuse your generosity."

"Now look here, mademoiselle," began Raynal bluntly, "I did start with a good motive at first, that there's no denying. But, since I have been every day in your company, and seen how good and kind you are to all about you, I have turned selfish; and I say to myself, what a comfort such a wife as you would be to a soldier! Why, only to have you to write letters home to, would be worth half a fellow's pay. Do you know sometimes when I see the fellows writing their letters it gives me a knock here to think I have no one at all to write to."

Josephine sighed.

"So you see I am not so mighty disinterested. Now, mademoiselle, you speak so charmingly, I can't tell what you mean: can't tell whether you say 'no' because you could never like me, or whether it is out of delicacy, and you only want pressing. So I say no more at present: it is a standing offer. Take a day to consider. Take two if you like. I must go to the barracks; good-day."

"Oh! this must be put an end to at once," said Rose.

"With all my heart," replied Josephine; "but how?"

"Come to our mother, and settle that," said the impetuous sister, and nearly dragged the languid one into the drawing-room.

To their surprise they found the baroness walking up and down the room with unusual alacrity for a person of her years. She no sooner caught sight of Josephine than she threw her arms open to her with joyful vivacity, and kissed her warmly. "My love, you have saved us. I am a happy old woman. If I had all France to pick from I could not have found a man so worthy of my Josephine. He is brave, he is handsome, he is young, he is a rising man, he is a good son, and good sons make good husbands—and—I shall die at Beaurepaire, shall I not, Madame the Commandante?"

Josephine held her mother round the neck, but never spoke. After a silence she held her tighter, and cried a little.

"What is it?" asked the baroness confidentially of Rose, but without showing any very profound concern.

"Mamma! mamma! she does not love him."

"Love him? She would be no daughter of mine if she loved a man at sight. A modest woman loves her husband only."

"But she scarcely knows Monsieur Raynal."

"She knows more of him than I knew of your father when I married him. She knows his virtues and appreciates them. I have heard her, have I not, love? Esteem soon ripens into love when they are once fairly married."

"Mother, does her silence then tell you nothing? Her tears—are they nothing to you?"

"Silly child! These are tears that do not scald. The sweet soul weeps because she now for the first time sees she will have to leave her mother. Alas! my eldest, it is inevitable. Mothers are not immortal. While they are here it is their duty to choose good husbands for their daughters. My youngest, I believe, has chosen for herself—like the nation. But for my eldest I choose. We shall see which chooses the best. Meantime we stay at Beaurepaire, thanks to my treasure here."

"Josephine! Josephine! you don't say one word," cried Rose in dismay.

"What CAN I say? I love my mother and I love you. You draw me different ways. I want you to be both happy."

"Then if you will not speak out I must. Mother, do not deceive yourself: it is duty alone that keeps her silent: this match is odious to her."

"Then we are ruined. Josephine, is this match odious to you?"

"Not exactly odious: but I am very, very indifferent."

"There!" cried Rose triumphantly.

"There!" cried the baroness in the same breath, triumphantly. "She esteems his character; but his person is indifferent to her: in other words, she is a modest girl, and my daughter; and let me tell you, Rose, that but for the misfortunes of our house, both my daughters would be married as I was, without knowing half as much of their husbands as Josephine knows of this brave, honest, generous, filial gentleman."

"Well, then, since she will not speak out, I will. Pity me: I love her so. If this stranger, whom she does not love, takes her away from us, he will kill me. I shall die; oh!"

Josephine left her mother and went to console Rose.

The baroness lost her temper at this last stroke of opposition. "Now the truth comes out, Rose; this is selfishness. Do not deceive YOURself—selfishness!"

"Mamma!"

"You are only waiting to leave me yourself. Yet your eldest sister, forsooth, must be kept here for you,—till then." She added more gently, "Let me advise you to retire to your own room, and examine your heart fairly. You will find there is a strong dash of egoism in all this."

"If I do"—

"You will retract your opposition."

"My heart won't let me; but I will despise myself, and be silent."

And the young lady, who had dried her eyes the moment she was accused of selfishness, walked, head erect, from the room. Josephine cast a deprecating glance at her mother. "Yes, my angel!" said the latter, "I was harsh. But we are no longer of one mind, and I suppose never shall be again."

"Oh, yes, we shall. Be patient! Mother—you shall not leave Beaurepaire."

The baroness colored faintly at these four last words of her daughter, and hung her head.

Josephine saw that, and darted to her and covered her with kisses.

That day the doctor scolded them both. "You have put your mother into a high fever," said he; "here's a pulse; I do wish you would be more considerate."

The commandant did not come to dinner as usual. The evening passed heavily; their hearts were full of uncertainty.

"We miss our merry, spirited companion," said the baroness with a grim look at Rose. Both young ladies assented with ludicrous eagerness.

That night Rose came and slept with Josephine, and more than once she awoke with a start and seized Josephine convulsively and held her tight.

Accused of egoism! at first her whole nature rose in arms against the charge: but, after a while, coming as it did from so revered a person, it forced her to serious self-examination. The poor girl said to herself, "Mamma is a shrewd woman. Am I after all deceiving myself? Would she be happy, and am I standing in the way?" In the morning she begged her sister to walk with her in the park, so that they might be safe from interruption.

There, she said sadly, she could not understand her own sister. "Why are you so calm and cold, while am I in tortures of anxiety? Have you made some resolve and not confided it to your Rose?"

"No, love," was the reply; "I am scarce capable of a resolution; I am a mere thing that drifts."

"Let me put it in other words, then. How will this end?"

"I hardly know."

"Do you mean to marry Monsieur Raynal, then? answer me that."

"No; but I should not wonder if he were to marry ME."

"But you said 'no.'"

"Yes, I said 'no' once."

"And don't you mean to say it again, and again, and again, till kingdom come?"

"What is the use? you heard him say he would not desist any the more, and I care too little about the matter to go on persisting, and persisting, and persisting."

"Why not, if he goes on pestering, and pestering, and pestering?"

"Ah, he is like you, all energy, at all hours; but I have so little where my heart is unconcerned: he seems, too, to have a wish! I have none either way, and my conscience says 'marry him!'"

"Your conscience say marry one man when you love another?"

"Heaven forbid! Rose, I love no one: I HAVE loved; but now my heart is dead and silent; only my conscience says, 'You are the cause of all your mother's trouble; you are the cause that Beaurepaire was sold. Now you can repair that mischief, and at the same time make a brave man happy, our benefactor happy.' It is a great temptation: I hardly know why I said 'no' at all; surprise, perhaps—or to please you, pretty one."

Rose groaned: "Are you then worth so little that you would throw yourself away on a man who does not love you, nor want you, and is quite as happy single?"

"No; not happy; he is only stout-hearted and good, and therefore content; and he is a character that it would be easy—in short, I feel my power here: I could make that man happy; he has nobody to write to even, when he is away—poor fellow!"

"I shall lose all patience," cried Rose; "you are at your old trick, thinking of everybody but yourself: I let you do it in trifles, but I love you too well to permit it when the happiness of your whole life is at stake. I must be satisfied on one point, or else this marriage shall never take place: just answer me this; if Camille Dujardin stood on one side, and Monsieur Raynal on the other, and both asked your hand, which would you take?"

"That will never be. Whose? Not his whom I despise. Esteem might ripen into love, but what must contempt end in?"

This reply gave Rose great satisfaction. To exhaust all awkward contingencies, she said, "One question more, and I have done. Suppose Camille should turn out—be not quite—what shall I say—inexcusable?"

At this unlucky gush, Josephine turned pale, then red, then pale again, and cried eagerly, "Then all the world should not part us. Why torture me with such a question? Ah! you have heard something." And in a moment the lava of passion burst wildly through its thin sheet of ice. "I was blind. This is why you would save me from this unnatural marriage. You are breaking the good news to me by degrees. There is no need. Quick—quick—let me have it. I have waited three years; I am sick of waiting. Why don't you speak? Why don't you tell me? Then I will tell YOU. He is alive—he is well—he is coming. It was not he those soldiers saw; they were so far off. How could they tell? They saw a uniform but not a face. Perhaps he has been a prisoner, and so could not write; could not come: but he is coming now. Why do you groan? why do you turn pale? ah! I see; I have once more deceived myself. I was mad. He I love is still a traitor to France and me, and I am wretched forever. Oh! that I were dead! oh! that I were dead! No; don't speak to me: never mind me; this madness will pass as it has before, and leave me a dead thing among the living. Ah! sister, why did you wake me from my dream? I was drifting so calmly, so peacefully, so dead, and painless, drifting over the dead sea of the heart towards the living waters of gratitude and duty. I was going to make more than one worthy soul happy; and seeing them happy, I should have been content and useful—what am I now?—and comforted other hearts, and died joyful—and young. For God is good; he releases the meek and patient from their burdens."

With this came a flood of tears; and she leaned against a bough with her forehead on her arm, bowed like a wounded lily.

"Accursed be that man's name, and MY tongue if ever I utter it again in your hearing!" cried Rose, weeping bitterly. "You are wiser than I, and every way better. O my darling, dry your tears! Here he comes: look! riding across the park."

"Rose," cried Josephine, hastily, "I leave all to you. Receive Monsieur Raynal, and decline his offer if you think proper. It is you who love me best. My mother would give me up for a house; for an estate, poor dear."

"I would not give you for all the world."

"I know it. I trust all to you."

"Well, but don't go; stay and hear what I shall say."

"Oh, no; that poor man is intolerable to me NOW. Let me avoid his sight, and think of his virtues."

Rose was left alone, mistress of her sister's fate. She put her head into her hands and filled with anxiety and sudden doubt.

Like a good many more of us, she had been positive so long as the decision did not rest with her. But with power comes responsibility, with responsibility comes doubt. Easy to be an advocate in re incerta; hard to be the judge. And she had but a few seconds to think in; for Raynal was at hand. The last thing in her mind before he joined her was the terrible power of that base Camille over her sister. She despaired of curing Josephine, but a husband might. There's such divinity doth hedge a husband in innocent girls' minds.

"Well, little lady," began Raynal, "and how are you, and how is my mother-in-law that is to be—or is not to be, as your sister pleases; and how is SHE? have I frightened her away? There were two petticoats, and now there is but one."

"She left me to answer you."

"All the worse for me: I am not to your taste."

"Do not say that," said Rose, almost hysterically.

"Oh! it is no sacrilege. Not one in fifty likes me."

"But I do like you, sir."

"Then why won't you let me have your sister?"

"I have not quite decided that you shall not have her," faltered poor Rose. She murmured on, "I dare say you think me very unkind, very selfish; but put yourself in my place. I love my sister as no man can ever love her, I know: my heart has been one flesh and one soul with hers all my life. A stranger comes and takes her away from me as if she was I don't know what; his portmanteau; takes her to Egypt, oh! oh! oh!"

Raynal comforted her.

"What, do you think I am such a brute as to take that delicate creature about fighting with me? why, the hot sand would choke her, to begin. No. You don't take my manoeuvre. I have no family; I try for a wife that will throw me in a mother and sister. You will live all together the same as before, of course; only you must let me make one of you when I am at home. And how often will that be? Besides, I am as likely to be knocked on the head in Egypt as not; you are worrying yourself for nothing, little lady."

He uttered the last topic of consolation in a broad, hearty, hilarious tone, like a trombone impregnated with cheerful views of fate.

"Heaven forbid!" cried Rose: "and I will, for even I shall pray for you now. What you will leave her at home? forgive me for not seeing all your worth: of course I knew you were an angel, but I had no idea you were a duck. You are just the man for my sister. She likes to obey: you are all for commanding. So you see. Then she never thinks of herself; any other man but you would impose on her good-nature; but you are too generous to do that. So you see. Then she esteems you so highly. And one whom I esteem (between you and me) has chosen you for her."

"Then say yes, and have done with it," suggested the straightforward soldier.

"Why should I say 'no?' you will make one another happy some day: you are both so good. Any other man but you would tear her from me; but you are too just, too kind. Heaven will reward you. No! I will. I will give you Josephine: ah, my dear brother-in-law, it is the most precious thing I have to give in the world."

"Thank you, then. So that is settled. Hum! no, it is not quite; I forgot; I have something for you to read; an anonymous letter. I got it this morning; it says your sister has a lover."

The letter ran to this tune: a friend who had observed the commandant's frequent visits at Beaurepaire wrote to warn him against traps. Both the young ladies of Beaurepaire were doubtless at the new proprietor's service to pick and choose from. But for all that each of them had a lover, and though these lovers had their orders to keep out of the way till monsieur should be hooked, he might be sure that if he married either, the man of her heart would come on the scene soon after, perhaps be present at the wedding.

In short, it was one of those poisoned arrows a coarse vindictive coward can shoot.

It was the first anonymous letter Rose had ever seen. It almost drove her mad on the spot. Raynal was sorry he had let her see it.

She turned red and white by turns, and gasped for breath.

"Why am I not a man?—why don't I wear a sword? I would pass it through this caitiff's heart. The cowardly slave!—the fiend! for who but a fiend could slander an angel like my Josephine? Hooked? Oh! she will never marry you if she sees this."

"Then don't let her see it: and why take it to heart like that? I don't trust to the word of a man who owns that his story is a thing he dares not sign his name to; at all events, I shall not put his word against yours. But it is best to understand one another in time. I am a plain man, but not a soft one. I should not be an easygoing husband like some I see about: I'd have no wasps round my honey; if my wife took a lover I would not lecture THE WOMAN—what is the use?—I'd kill THE MAN then and there, in-doors or out, as I would kill a snake. If she took another, I'd send him after the first, and so on till one killed me."

"And serve the wretches right."

"Yes; but for my own sake I don't choose to marry a woman that loves any other man. So tell me the plain truth; come."

Rose turned chill in her inside. "I have no lover," she stammered. "I have a young fool that comes and teases me: but it is no secret. He is away, but why? he is on a sickbed, poor little fellow!"

"But your sister? She could not have a lover unknown to you."

"I defy her. No, sir; I have not seen her speak three words to any young man except Monsieur Riviere this three years past."

"That is enough;" and he tore the letter quietly to atoms.

Then Rose saw she could afford a little more candor. "Understand me; I can't speak of what happened when I was a child. But if ever she had a girlish attachment, he has not followed it up, or surely I should have seen something of him all these years."

"Of course. Oh! as for flirtations, let them pass: a lovely girl does not grow up without one or two whispering some nonsense into her ear. Why, I myself should have flirted no doubt; but I never had the time. Bonaparte gives you time to eat and drink, but not to sleep or flirt, and that reminds me I have fifty miles to ride, so good-by, sister-in-law, eh?"

"Adieu, brother-in-law."

Left alone, Rose had some misgivings. She had equivocated with one whose upright, candid nature ought to have protected him: but an enemy had accused Josephine; and it came so natural to shield her. "Did he really think I would expose my own sister?" said she to herself, angrily. Was not this anger secret self-discontent?

"Well, love," said Josephine, demurely, "have you dismissed him?"

"No."

Josephine smiled feebly. "It is easy to say 'say no;' but it is not so easy to say 'no,' especially when you feel you ought to say 'yes,' and have no wish either way except to give pleasure to others."

"But I am not such skim milk as all that," replied Rose: "I have always a strong wish where you are concerned, and your happiness. I hesitated whilst I was in doubt, but I doubt no longer: I have had a long talk with him. He has shown me his whole heart: he is the best, the noblest of creatures: he has no littleness or meanness. And then he is a thorough man; I know that by his being the very opposite of a woman in his ways. Now you are a thorough woman, and so you will suit one another to a T. I have decided: so no more doubts, love; no more tears; no more disputes. We are all of one mind, and I do think I have secured your happiness. It will not come in a day, perhaps, but it will come. So then in one little fortnight you marry Monsieur Raynal."

"What!" said Josephine, "you have actually settled that?"

"Yes."

"But are you sure I can make him as happy as he deserves?"

"Positive."

"I think so too; still"—

"It is settled, dear," said Rose soothingly.

"Oh, the comfort of that! you relieve me of a weight; you give me peace. I shall have duties; I shall do some good in the world. They were all for it but you before, were they not?"

"Yes, and now I am strongest for it of them all. Josephine, it is settled."

Josephine looked at her for a moment in silence, then said eagerly, "Bless you, dear Rose; you have saved your sister;" then, after a moment, in a very different voice, "O Camille! Camille! why have you deserted me?"

And with this she fell to sobbing terribly. Rose wept on her neck, but said nothing. She too was a woman, and felt that this was the last despairing cry of love giving up a hopeless struggle.

They sat twined together in silence till Jacintha came to tell them it was close upon dinner-time; so then they hastened to dry their tears and wash their red eyes, for fear their mother should see what they had been at, and worry herself.

"Well, mademoiselle, these two consent; but what do you say? for after all, it is you I am courting, and not them. Have you the courage to venture on a rough soldier like me?"

This delicate question was put point-blank before the three ladies.

"Sir," replied Josephine timidly, "I will be as frank, as straightforward as you are. I thank you for the honor you do me."

Raynal looked perplexed.

"And does that mean 'yes' or 'no'?"

"Which you please," said Josephine, hanging her sweet head.

The wedding was fixed for that day fortnight. The next morning wardrobes were ransacked. The silk, muslin, and lace of their prosperous days were looked out: grave discussions were held over each work of art. Rose was active, busy, fussy. The baroness threw in the weight of her judgment and experience.

Josephine managed to smile whenever either Rose or the baroness looked at all fixedly at her.

So glided the peaceful days. So Josephine drifted towards the haven of wedlock.



CHAPTER VI.

At Bayonne, a garrison town on the south frontier of France, two sentinels walked lethargically, crossing and recrossing before the governor's house. Suddenly their official drowsiness burst into energy; for a pale, grisly man, in rusty, defaced, dirty, and torn regimentals, was walking into the courtyard as if it belonged to him. The sentinels lowered their muskets, and crossed them with a clash before the gateway.

The scarecrow did not start back. He stopped and looked down with a smile at the steel barrier the soldiers had improvised for him, then drew himself a little up, carried his hand carelessly to his cap, which was nearly in two, and gave the name of an officer in the French army.

If you or I, dressed like a beggar who years ago had stolen regimentals and worn them down to civil garments, had addressed these soldiers with these very same words, the bayonets would have kissed closer, or perhaps the points been turned against our sacred and rusty person: but there is a freemasonry of the sword. The light, imperious hand that touched that battered cap, and the quiet clear tone of command told. The sentinels slowly recovered their pieces, but still looked uneasy and doubtful in their minds. The battered one saw this, and gave a sort of lofty smile; he turned up his cuffs and showed his wrists, and drew himself still higher.

The sentinels shouldered their pieces sharp, then dropped them simultaneously with a clatter and ring upon the pavement.

"Pass, captain."

The rusty figure rang the governor's bell. A servant came and eyed him with horror and contempt. He gave his name, and begged to see the governor. The servant left him in the hall, and went up-stairs to tell his master. At the name the governor reflected, then frowned, then bade his servant reach him down a certain book. He inspected it. "I thought so: any one with him?"

"No, your excellency."

"Load my pistols, put them on the table, show him in, and then order a guard to the door."

The governor was a stern veteran with a powerful brow, a shaggy eyebrow, and a piercing eye. He never rose, but leaned his chin on his hand, and his elbow on a table that stood between them, and eyed his visitor very fixedly and strangely. "We did not expect to see you on this side the Pyrenees," said he gravely.

"Nor I myself, governor."

"What do you come for?"

"A suit of regimentals, and money to take me to Paris."

"And suppose, instead of that, I turn out a corporal's guard, and bid them shoot you in the courtyard?"

"It would be the drollest thing you ever did, all things considered," said the other coolly, but bitterly.

The governor looked for the book he had lately consulted, found the page, handed it to the rusty officer, and watched him keenly: the blood rushed all over his face, and his lip trembled; but his eye dwelt stern yet sorrowful on the governor.

"I have read your book, now read mine." He drew off his coat and showed his wrists and arms, blue and waled. "Can you read that, sir?"

"No."

"All the better for you: Spanish fetters, general." He showed a white scar on his shoulder. "Can you read that? This is what I cut out of it," and he handed the governor a little round stone as big and almost as regular as a musket-ball.

"Humph! that could hardly have been fired from a French musket."

"Can you read this?" and he showed him a long cicatrix on his other arm.

"Knife I think," said the governor.

"You are right, sir: Spanish knife. Can you read this?" and opening his bosom he showed a raw wound on his breast.

"Oh, the devil!" cried the governor.

The wounded man put his rusty coat on again, and stood erect, and haughty, and silent.

The general eyed him, and saw his great spirit shining through this man. The more he looked the less could the scarecrow veil the hero from his practised eye. He said there must be some mistake, or else he was in his dotage; after a moment's hesitation, he added, "Be seated, if you please, and tell me what you have been doing all these years."

"Suffering."

"Not all the time, I suppose."

"Without intermission."

"But what? suffering what?"

"Cold, hunger, darkness, wounds, solitude, sickness, despair, prison, all that man can suffer."

"Impossible! a man would be dead at that rate before this."

"I should have died a dozen deaths but for one thing; I had promised her to live."

There was a pause. Then the old soldier said gravely, but more kindly, to the young one, "Tell me the facts, captain" (the first time he had acknowledged his visitor's military rank).

An hour had scarce elapsed since the rusty figure was stopped by the sentinels at the gate, when two glittering officers passed out under the same archway, followed by a servant carrying a furred cloak. The sentinels presented arms. The elder of these officers was the governor: the younger was the late scarecrow, in a brand-new uniform belonging to the governor's son. He shone out now in his true light; the beau ideal of a patrician soldier; one would have said he had been born with a sword by his side and drilled by nature, so straight and smart, yet easy he was in every movement. He was like a falcon, eye and all, only, as it were, down at the bottom of the hawk's eye lay a dove's eye. That compound and varying eye seemed to say, I can love, I can fight: I can fight, I can love, as few of you can do either.

The old man was trying to persuade him to stay at Bayonne, until his wound should be cured.

"No, general, I have other wounds to cure of longer standing than this one."

"Well, promise me to lay up at Paris."

"General, I shall stay an hour at Paris."

"An hour in Paris! Well, at least call at the War Office and present this letter."

That same afternoon, wrapped in the governor's furred cloak, the young officer lay at his full length in the coupe of the diligence, the whole of which the governor had peremptorily demanded for him, and rolled day and night towards Paris.

He reached it worn with fatigue and fevered by his wound, but his spirit as indomitable as ever. He went to the War Office with the governor's letter. It seemed to create some little sensation; one functionary came and said a polite word to him, then another. At last to his infinite surprise the minister himself sent down word he wished to see him; the minister put several questions to him, and seemed interested in him and touched by his relation.

"I think, captain, I shall have to send to you: where do you stay in Paris?"

"Nowhere, monsieur; I leave Paris as soon as I can find an easy-going horse."

"But General Bretaux tells me you are wounded."

"Not dangerously."

"Pardon me, captain, but is this prudent? is it just to yourself and your friends?"

"Yes, I owe it to those who perhaps think me dead."

"You can write to them."

"I grudge so great, so sacred a joy to a letter. No! after all I have suffered I claim to be the one to tell her I have kept my word: I promised to live, and I live."

"HER? then I say no more, only tell me what road you take."

"The road to Brittany."

As the young officer was walking his horse by the roadside about a league and a half from Paris, he heard a clatter behind him, and up galloped an aide-de-camp and drew up alongside, bringing his horse nearly on his haunches.

He handed him a large packet sealed with the arms of France. The other tore it open; and there was his brevet as colonel. His cheek flushed and his eye glittered with joy. The aide-de-camp next gave him a parcel: "Your epaulets, colonel! We hear you are going into the wilds where epaulets don't grow. You are to join the army of the Rhine as soon as your wound is well."

"Wherever my country calls me."

"Your address, then, colonel, that we may know where to put our finger on a tried soldier when we want one."

"I am going to Beaurepaire."

"Beaurepaire? I never heard of it."

"You never heard of Beaurepaire? it is in Brittany, forty-five leagues from Paris, forty-three leagues and a half from here."

"Good! Health and honor to you, colonel."

"The same to you, lieutenant; or a soldier's death."

The new colonel read the precious document across his horse's mane, and then he was going to put one of the epaulets on his right shoulder, bare at present: but he reflected.

"No; she should make him a colonel with her own dear hand. He put them in his pocket. He would not even look at them till she had seen them. Oh, how happy he was not only to come back to her alive, but to come back to her honored."

His wound smarted, his limbs ached, but no pain past or present could lay hold of his mind. In his great joy he remembered past suffering and felt present pain—yet smiled. Only every now and then he pined for wings to shorten the weary road.

He was walking his horse quietly, drooping a little over his saddle, when another officer well mounted came after him and passed him at a hand gallop with one hasty glance at his uniform, and went tearing on like one riding for his life.

"Don't I know that face?" said Dujardin.

He cudgelled his memory, and at last he remembered it was the face of an old comrade. At least it strongly reminded him of one Jean Raynal who had saved his life in the Arno, when they were lieutenants together.

Yes, it was certainly Raynal, only bronzed by service in some hot country.

"Ah!" thought Camille; "I suppose I am more changed than he is; for he certainly did not recognize me at all. Now I wonder what that fellow has been doing all this time. What a hurry he was in! a moment more and I should have hailed him. Perhaps I may fall in with him at the next town."

He touched his horse with the spur, and cantered gently on, for trotting shook him more than he could bear. Even when he cantered he had to press his hand against his bosom, and often with the motion a bitterer pang than usual came and forced the water from his eyes; and then he smiled. His great love and his high courage made this reply to the body's anguish. And still his eyes looked straight forward as at some object in the distant horizon, while he came gently on, his hand pressed to his bosom, his head drooping now and then, smiling patiently, upon the road to Beaurepaire.

Oh! if anybody had told him that in five days his Josephine was to be married; and that the bronzed comrade, who had just galloped past him, was to marry her!

At Beaurepaire they were making and altering wedding-dresses. Rose was excited, and even Josephine took a calm interest. Dress never goes for nothing with her sex. The chairs and tables were covered, and the floor was littered. The baroness was presiding over the rites of vanity, and telling them what she wore at her wedding, under Louis XV., with strict accuracy, and what we men should consider a wonderful effort of memory, when the Commandant Raynal came in like a cannon-ball, without any warning, and stood among them in a stiff, military attitude. Exclamations from all the party, and then a kind greeting, especially from the baroness.

"We have been so dull without you, Jean."

"And I have missed you once or twice, mother-in-law, I can tell you. Well, I have got bad news; but you must consider we live in a busy time. To-morrow I start for Egypt."

Loud ejaculations from the baroness and Rose. Josephine put down her work quietly.

The baroness sighed deeply, and the tears came into her eyes. "Oh, you must not be down-hearted, old lady," shouted Raynal. "Why, I am as likely to come back from Egypt as not. It is an even chance, to say the least."

This piece of consolation completed the baroness's unhappiness. She really had conceived a great affection for Raynal, and her heart had been set on the wedding.

"Take away all that finery, girls," said she bitterly; "we shall not want it for years. I shall not be alive when he comes home from Egypt. I never had a son—only daughters—the best any woman ever had; but a mother is not complete without a son, and I shall never live to have one now."

"I hate General Bonaparte," said Rose viciously.

"Hate my general?" groaned Raynal, looking down with a sort of superstitious awe and wonder at the lovely vixen. "Hate the best soldier the world ever saw?"

"What do I care for his soldiership? He has put off our wedding. For how many years did you say?"

"No; he has put it on."

In answer to the astonished looks this excited, he explained that the wedding was to have been in a week, but now it must be to-morrow at ten o'clock.

The three ladies set up their throats together. "Tomorrow?"

"To-morrow. Why, what do you suppose I left Paris for yesterday? left my duties even."

"What, monsieur?" asked Josephine, timidly, "did you ride all that way, and leave your duties MERELY TO MARRY ME?" and she looked a little pleased.

"You are worth a great deal more trouble than that," said Raynal simply. "Besides, I had passed my word, and I always keep my word."

"So do I," said Josephine, a little proudly. "I will not go from it now, if you insist; but I confess to you, that such a proposal staggers me; so sudden—no preliminaries—no time to reflect; in short, there are so many difficulties that I must request you to reconsider the matter."

"Difficulties," shouted Raynal with merry disdain; "there are none, unless you sit down and make them; we do more difficult things than this every day of our lives: we passed the bridge of Arcola in thirteen minutes; and we had not the consent of the enemy, as we have yours—have we not?"

Her only reply was a look at her mother, to which the baroness replied by a nod; then turning to Raynal, "This empressement is very flattering; but I see no possibility: there is an etiquette we cannot altogether defy: there are preliminaries before a daughter of Beaurepaire can become a wife."

"There used to be all that, madam," laughed Raynal, putting her down good-humoredly; "but it was in the days when armies came out and touched their caps to one another, and went back into winter quarters. Then the struggle was who could go slowest; now the fight is who can go fastest. Time and Bonaparte wait for nobody; and ladies and other strong places are taken by storm, not undermined a foot a month as under Noah Quartorze: let me cut this short, as time is short."

He then drew a little plan of a wedding campaign. "The carriages will be here at 9 A.M.," said he; "they will whisk us down to the mayor's house by a quarter to ten: Picard, the notary, meets us there with the marriage contract, to save time; the contract signed, the mayor will do the marriage at quick step out of respect for me—half an hour—quarter past ten; breakfast in the same house an hour and a quarter:—we mustn't hurry a wedding breakfast—then ten minutes or so for the old fogies to waste in making speeches about our virtues—my watch will come out—my charger will come round—I rise from the table—embrace my dear old mother—kiss my wife's hand—into the saddle—canter to Paris—roll to Toulon—sail to Egypt. But I shall leave a wife and a mother behind me: they will both send me a kind word now and then; and I will write letters to you all from Egypt, and when I come home, my wife and I will make acquaintance, and we will all be happy together: and if I am killed out there, don't you go and fret your poor little hearts about it; it is a soldier's lot sooner or later. Besides, you will find I have taken care of you; nobody shall come and turn you out of your quarters, even though Jean Raynal should be dead; I have got to meet Picard at Riviere's on that very business—I am off."

He was gone as brusquely as he came.

"Mother! sister!" cried Josephine, "help me to love this man."

"You need no help," cried the baroness, with enthusiasm, "not love him, we should all be monsters."

Raynal came to supper looking bright and cheerful. "No more work to-day. I have nothing to do but talk; fancy that."

This evening Josephine de Beaurepaire, who had been silent and thoughtful, took a quiet opportunity, and purred in his ear, "Monsieur!"

"Mademoiselle!" rang the trombone.

"Am I not to go to Egypt?"

"No."

Josephine drew back at this brusque reply like a sensitive plant. But she returned to the attack.

"But is it not a wife's duty to be by her husband's side to look after his comfort—to console him when others vex him—to soothe him when he is harassed?"

"Her first duty is to obey him."

"Certainly."

"Well, when I am your husband, I shall bid you stay with your mother and sister while I go to Egypt."

"I shall obey you."

He told her bluntly he thought none the worse of her for making the offer; but should not accept it.

Camille Dujardin slept that night at a roadside inn about twelve miles from Beaurepaire, and not more than six from the town where the wedding was to take place next day.

It was a close race.

And the racers all unconscious of each other, yet spurred impartially by events that were now hurrying to a climax.



CHAPTER VII.

The next day at sharp nine two carriages were at the door.

But the ladies were not ready. Thus early in the campaign did they throw all into disorder. For so nicely had Raynal timed the several events that this threw him all into confusion. He stamped backwards and forwards, and twisted his mustaches, and swore. This enforced unpunctuality was a new torture to him. Jacintha told them he was angry, and that made them nervous and flurried, and their fingers strayed wildly among hooks and eyes, and all sorts of fastenings; they were not ready till half-past nine. Conscious they deserved a scolding, they sent Josephine down first to mollify. She dawned upon the honest soldier so radiant, so dazzling in her snowy dress, with her coronet of pearls (an heirloom), and her bridal veil parted, and the flush of conscious beauty on her cheek, that instead of scolding her, he actually blurted out, "Well! by St. Denis it was worth waiting half an hour for."

He recovered a quarter of an hour by making the driver gallop. Then occasional shrieks issued from the carriage that held the baroness. That ancient lady feared annihilation: she had not come down from a galloping age.

They drove into the town, drew up at the mayor's house, were received with great ceremony by that functionary and Picard, and entered the house.

When their carriages rattled into the street from the north side, Colonel Dujardin had already entered it from the south, and was riding at a foot's pace along the principal street. The motion of his horse now shook him past endurance. He dismounted at an inn a few doors from the mayor's house, and determined to do the rest of the short journey on foot. The landlord bustled about him obsequiously. "You are faint, colonel; you have travelled too far. Let me order you an excellent breakfast."

"No. I want a carriage; have you one?"

"I have two; but, unluckily, they are both engaged for the day, and by people of distinction. Commandant Raynal is married to-day."

"Ah! I wish him joy," said Camille, heartily. He then asked the landlord to open the window, as he felt rather faint. The landlord insisted on breakfast, and Camille sat down to an omelet and a bottle of red wine. Then he lay awhile near the window, revived by the air, and watched the dear little street he had not seen for years. He felt languid, but happy, celestially happy.

She was a few doors from him, and neither knew it.

A pen was put into her white hand, and in another moment she had signed a marriage contract.

"Now to the church," cried the baroness, gayly. To get to the church, they must pass by the window Camille reclined at.



CHAPTER VIII.

"Oh! there's no time for that," said Raynal. And as the baroness looked horrified and amazed, Picard explained: "The state marries its citizens now, with reason: since marriage is a civil contract."

"Marriage a civil contract!" repeated the baroness. "What, is it then no longer one of the holy sacraments? What horrible impiety shall we come to next? Unhappy France! Such a contract would never be a marriage in my eyes: and what would become of an union the Church had not blessed?"

"Madame," said Picard, "the Church can bless it still; but it is only the mayor here that can DO it."

All this time Josephine was blushing scarlet, and looking this way and that, with a sort of instinctive desire to fly and hide, no matter where, for a week or so.

"Haw! haw! haw!" roared Raynal; "here is a pretty mother. Wants her daughter to be unlawfully married in a church, instead of lawfully in a house. Give me the will!"

"Look here, mother-in-law: I have left Beaurepaire to my lawful wife."

"Otherwise," put in Picard, "in case of death, it would pass to his heir-at-law."

"And HE would turn you all out, and that does not suit me. Now there stands the only man who can make mademoiselle my LAWFUL wife. So quick march, monsieur the mayor, for time and Bonaparte wait for no man."

"Stay a minute, young people," said the mayor. "We should soothe respectable prejudices, not crush them. Madam, I am at least as old as you, and have seen many changes. I perfectly understand your feelings."

"Ah, monsieur! oh!"

"Calm yourself, dear madam; the case is not so bad as you think. It is perfectly true that in republican France the civil magistrate alone can bind French citizens in lawful wedlock. But this does not annihilate the religious ceremony. You can ask the Church's blessing on my work; and be assured you are not the only one who retains that natural prejudice. Out of every ten couples that I marry, four or five go to church afterwards and perform the ancient ceremonies. And they do well. For there before the altar the priest tells them what it is not my business to dilate upon—the grave moral and religious duties they have undertaken along with this civil contract. The state binds, but the Church still blesses, and piously assents to that"—

"From which she has no power to dissent."

"Monsieur Picard, do you consider it polite to interrupt the chief magistrate of the place while he is explaining the law to a citizen?"

(This closed Picard.)

"I married a daughter last year," continued the worthy mayor.

"What, after this fashion?"

"I married her myself, as I will marry yours, if you will trust me with her. And after I have made them one, there is nothing to prevent them adjourning to the church."

"I beg your pardon," cried Raynal, "there are two things to prevent it: a couple that wait for no man: Time and Bonaparte. Come, sir; marry us, and have done with it."

The mayor assented. He invited Josephine to stand before him. She trembled and wept a little: Rose clung to her and wept, and the good mayor married the parties off hand.

"Is that all?" asked the baroness; "it is terribly soon done."

"It is done effectively, madam," said the mayor, with a smile. "Permit me to tell you that his Holiness the Pope cannot undo my work."

Picard grinned slyly, and whispered something into Raynal's ear.

"Oh! indeed," said Raynal aloud and carelessly. "Come, Madame Raynal, to breakfast: follow us, the rest of you."

They paired, and followed the bride and bridegroom into the breakfast-room.

The light words Picard whispered were five in number.

Now if the mayor had not snubbed Picard just before, he would have uttered those jocose but true words aloud. There was no particular reason why he should not. And if he had,—The threads of the web of life, how subtle they are! The finest cotton of Manchester, the finer meshes of the spider, seem three-inch cables by comparison with those moral gossamers which vulgar eyes cannot see at all, the "somethings, nothings," on which great fates have hung.

It was a cheerful breakfast, thanks to Raynal, who would be in high spirits, and would not allow a word of regret from any one. Madame Raynal sat by his side, looking up at him every now and then with innocent admiration. A merry wedding breakfast.

But if men and women could see through the walls of houses!

Two doors off sat the wounded colonel alone, recruiting the small remnant of his sore tried strength, that he might struggle on to Beaurepaire, and lose in one moment years of separation, pain, prison, anguish, martyrdom, in one great gush of joy without compare.

The wedding breakfast was ended. The time was drawing near to part. There was a silence. It was broken by Madame Raynal. She asked Raynal very timidly if he had reflected. "On what?" said he.

"About taking me to Egypt."

"No: I have not given it a thought since I said 'no.'"

"Yet permit me to say that it is my duty to be by your side, my husband." And she colored at this word, being the first time she had ever used it. Raynal was silent. She murmured on, "I would not be an encumbrance to you, sir: I should not be useless. Gentlemen, I could add more to his comfort than he gives me credit for."

Warm assent of the mayor and notary to this hint.

"I give you credit for being an angel," said Raynal warmly.

He hesitated. Rose was trembling, her fork shaking in her poor little hand.

She cast a piteous glance at him. He saw it.

"You shall go with me next time," said he. "Let us speak of it no more."

Josephine bowed her head. "At least give me something to do for you while you are away. Tell me what I can do for my absent friend to show my gratitude, my regard, my esteem."

"Well, let me think. I saw a plain gray dress at Beaurepaire."

"Yes, monsieur. My gray silk, Rose."

"I like that dress."

"Do you? Then the moment I reach home after losing you I shall put it on, and it shall be my constant wear. I see; you are right; gray becomes a wife whose husband is not dead, but is absent, and alas! in hourly danger."

"Now look at that!" cried Raynal to the company. "That is her all over: she can see six meanings where another would see but one. I never thought of that, I swear. I like modest colors, that is all. My mother used to be all for modest wives wearing modest colors."

"I am of her mind, sir. Is there nothing more difficult you will be so good as give me to do?"

"No; there is only one order more, and that will be easier still to such a woman as you. I commit to your care the name of Raynal. It is not so high a name as yours, but it is as honest. I am proud of it: I am jealous of it. I shall guard it for you in Egypt: you guard it in France for me."

"With my life," cried Josephine, lifting her eyes and her hand to heaven.

Soon after this Raynal ordered his charger.

The baroness began to cry. "The young people may hope to see you again," said she; "but there are two chances against your poor old mother."

"Courage, mother!" cried the stout soldier. "No, no; you won't play me such a trick: once is enough for that game."

"Brother!" cried Rose, "do not go without kissing your little sister, who loves you and thanks you." He kissed her. "Bravo, generous soul!" she cried, with her arms round his neck. "God protect you, and send you back safe to us!"

"Amen!" cried all present by one impulse, even the cold notary.

Raynal's mustache quivered. He kissed Josephine hastily on the brow, the baroness on both cheeks; shook the men's hands warmly but hastily, and strode out without looking behind him. He was moved for once.

They all followed him to the door of the house. He was tightening his horse's girths. He flung himself with all the resolution of his steel nature into the saddle, and, with one grand wave of his cocked hat to the tearful group, he spurred away for Egypt.



CHAPTER IX.

The baroness took the doctor a-shopping; she must buy Rose a gray silk. In doing this she saw many other tempting things. I say no more.

But the young ladies went up to Beaurepaire in the other carriage, for Josephine wished to avoid the gaze of the town, and get home and be quiet. The driver went very fast. He had drunk the bride's health at the mayor's, item the bridegroom's, the bridesmaid's, the mayor's, etc., and "a spur in the head is worth two in the heel," says the proverb. The sisters leaned back on the soft cushions, and enjoyed the smooth and rapid motion once so familiar to them, so rare of late.

Then Rose took her sister gently to task for having offered to go to Egypt. She had forgotten her poor sister.

"No, love," replied Josephine, "did you not see I dared not look towards you? I love you better than all the world; but this was my duty. I was his wife: I had no longer a feeble inclination and a feeble disinclination to decide between, but right on one side, wrong on the other."

"Oh! I know where your ladyship's strength lies: my force is—in—my inclinations."

"Yes, Rose," continued Josephine thoughtfully, "duty is a great comfort: it is so tangible; it is something to lay hold of for life or death; a strong tower for the weak but well disposed."

Rose assented, and they were silent a minute; and when she spoke again it was to own she loved a carriage. "How fast we glide! Now lean back with me, and take my hand, and as we glide shut your eyes and think: whisper me all your feelings, every one of them."

"Well, then," said Josephine, half closing her eyes, "in the first place I feel a great calm, a heavenly calm. My fate is decided. No more suspense. My duties are clear. I have a husband I am proud of. There is no perfidy with him, no deceit, no disingenuousness, no shade. He is a human sun. He will make me a better, truer woman, and I him a happier man. Yes, is it not nice to think that great and strong as he is I can teach him a happiness he knows not as yet?" And she smiled with the sense of her delicate power, but said no more; for she was not the one to talk much about herself. But Rose pressed her. "Yes, go on, dear," she said, "I seem to see your pretty little thoughts rising out of your heart like a bubbling fountain: go on."

Thus encouraged, Josephine thought on aloud, "And then, gratitude!" said she. "I have heard it said, or read it somewhere, that gratitude is a burden: I cannot understand that sentiment; why, to me gratitude is a delight, gratitude is a passion. It is the warmest of all the tender feelings I have for dear Monsieur Raynal. I feel it glow here, in my bosom. I think I shall love him as I ought long before he comes back."

"BEFORE?"

"Yes," murmured Josephine, her eyes still half closed. "His virtues will always be present to me. His little faults of manner will not be in sight. Good Raynal! The image of those great qualities I revere so, perhaps because I fail in them myself, will be before my mind; and ere he comes home I shall love him dearly. I'll tell you one reason why I wished to go home at once was—no—you must guess."

"Guess?" said Rose, contemptuously. "As if I did not see it was to put on your gray silk."

Josephine smiled assent, and said almost with fervor, "Good Raynal! I feel prouder of his honest name than of our noble one. And I am so calm, dear, thanks to you, so tranquil; so pleased that my mother's mind is at rest, so convinced all is for the best, so contented with my own lot; so hap—py."

A gentle tear stole from beneath her long lashes. Rose looked at her wistfully: then laid her cheek to hers. They leaned back hand in hand, placid and silent.

The carriage glided fast. Beaurepaire was almost in sight.

Suddenly Josephine's hand tightened on Rose's, and she sat up in the carriage like a person awakened from a strange dream.

"What is it?" asked Rose.

"Some one in uniform."

"Oh, is that all? Ah! you thought it was a message from Raynal."

"Oh! no! on foot—walking very slowly. Coming this way, too. Coming this way!" and she became singularly restless, and looked round in the carriage. It was one of those old chariots with no side windows, but a peep hole at the back. This aperture, however, had a flap over it. Josephine undid the flap with nimble though agitated fingers; and saw—nothing. The road had taken a turn. "Oh," said Rose, carelessly, "for that matter the roads are full of soldiers just now."

"Ay, but not of officers on foot."

Rose gave her such a look, and for the first time this many a day spoke sternly to her, and asked her what on earth she had to do with uniforms or officers except one, the noblest in the world, her husband.

A month ago that word was almost indifferent to Josephine, or rather she uttered it with a sort of mild complacency. Now she started at it, and it struck chill upon her. She did not reply, however, and the carriage rolled on.

"He seemed to be dragging himself along." This was the first word Josephine had spoken for some time. "Oh, did he?" replied Rose carelessly; "well, let him. Here we are, at home."

"I am glad of it," said Josephine, "very glad."

On reaching Beaurepaire she wanted to go up-stairs at once and put on her gray gown. But the day was so delightful that Rose begged her to stroll in the Pleasaunce for half an hour and watch for their mother's return. She consented in an absent way, and presently began to walk very fast, unconscious of her companion. Rose laid a hand upon her playfully to moderate her, and found her skin burning.

"Why, what is the matter?" said she, anxiously.

"Nothing, nothing," was the sharp reply.

"There's a fretful tone; and how excited you look, and feel too. Well, I thought you were unnaturally calm after such an event."

"I only saw his back," said Josephine. "Did not you see him?"

"See who? Oh, that tiresome officer. Why, how much more are we to hear about him? I don't believe there WAS one."

At this moment a cocked hat came in sight, bobbing up and down above the palings that divided the park from the road. Josephine pointed to it without a word.

Rose got a little cross at being practically confuted, and said coldly, "Come, let us go in; the only cocked hat we can see is on the way to Paris."

Josephine assented eagerly. But she had not taken two steps towards the house ere she altered her mind, and said she felt faint, she wanted air; no, she should stay out a little longer. "Look, Rose," said she, in a strangely excited way, "what a shame! They put all manner of rubbish into this dear old tree: I will have it all turned out." And she looked with feigned interest into the tree: but her eyes seemed turned inward.

Rose gave a cry of surprise. "He is waving his hat to me! What on earth does that mean?"

"Perhaps he takes you for me," said Josephine.

"Who is it? What do you mean?"

"IT IS HE! I knew his figure at a glance." And she blushed and trembled with joy; she darted behind the tree and peered round at him unseen: turning round a moment she found Rose at her back pale and stern. She looked at her, and said with terrible simplicity, "Ah, Rose, I forgot."

"Are you mad, Josephine? Into the house this moment; if it IS he, I will receive him and send him about his business."

But Josephine stood fascinated, and pale as ashes; for now the cocked hat stopped, and a pale face with eyes whose eager fire shone even at that distance, rose above the palings. Josephine crouched behind Rose, and gasped out, "Something terrible is coming, terrible! terrible!"

"Say something hateful," said Rose, trembling in her turn, but only with anger. "The heartless selfish traitor! He never notices you till you are married to the noblest of mankind; and then he comes here directly to ruin your peace. No; I have altered my mind. He shall not see you, of course; but YOU shall hear HIM. I'll soon make you know the wretch and loathe him as I do. There, now he has turned the corner; hide in the oak while he is out of sight. Hide, quick, quick." Josephine obeyed mechanically; and presently, through that very aperture whence her sister had smiled on her lover she hissed out, in a tone of which one would not have thought her capable, "Be wise, be shrewd; find out who is the woman that has seduced him from me, and has brought two wretches to this. I tell you it is some wicked woman's doing. He loved me once."

"Not so loud!—one word: you are a wife. Swear to me you will not let him see you, come what may."

"Oh! never! never!" cried Josephine with terror. "I would rather die. When you have heard what he has to say, then tell him I am dead. No, tell him I adore my husband, and went to Egypt this day with him. Ah! would to God I had!"

"Sh! sh!"

"Sh!"

Camille was at the little gate.

Rose stood still, and nerved herself in silence. Josephine panted in her hiding-place.

Rose's only thought now was to expose the traitor to her sister, and restore her peace. She pretended not to see Camille till he was near her. He came eagerly towards her, his pale face flushing with great joy, and his eyes like diamonds.

"Josephine! It is not Josephine, after all," said he. "Why, this must be Rose, little Rose, grown up to a fine lady, a beautiful lady."

"What do you come here for, sir?" asked Rose in a tone of icy indifference.

"What do I come here for? is that the way to speak to me? but I am too happy to mind. Dear Beaurepaire! do I see you once again!"

"And madame?"

"What madame?"

"Madame Dujardin that is or was to be."

"This is the first I have ever heard of her," said Camille, gayly.

"This is odd, for we have heard all about it."

"Are you jesting?"

"No."

"If I understand you right, you imply that I have broken faith with Josephine?"

"Certainly."

"Then you lie, Mademoiselle Rose de Beaurepaire."

"Insolent!"

"No. It is you who have insulted your sister as well as me. She was not made to be deserted for meaner women. Come, mademoiselle, affront me, and me alone, and you shall find me more patient. Oh! who would have thought Beaurepaire would receive me thus?"

"It is your own fault. You never sent her a line for all these years."

"Why, how could I?"

"Well, sir, the information you did not supply others did. We know that you were seen in a Spanish village drinking between two guerillas."

"That is true," said Camille.

"An honest French soldier fired at you. Why, he told us so himself."

"He told you true," said Camille, sullenly. "The bullet grazed my hand; see, here is the mark. Look!" She did look, and gave a little scream; but recovering herself, said she wished it had gone through his heart. "Why prolong this painful interview?" said she; "the soldier told us all."

"I doubt that," said Camille. "Did he tell you that under the table I was chained tight down to the chair I sat in? Did he tell you that my hand was fastened to a drinking-horn, and my elbow to the table, and two fellows sitting opposite me with pistols quietly covering me, ready to draw the trigger if I should utter a cry? Did he tell you that I would have uttered that cry and died at that table but for one thing, I had promised her to live?"

"Not he; he told me nothing so incredible. Besides, what became of you all these years? You are a double traitor, to your country and to her."

Camille literally gasped for breath. "You are a most cruel young lady to insult me so," said he, and scalding tears forced themselves from his eyes.

Rose eyed him with merciless scorn.

He fought manfully against this weakness, with which his wound and his fatigue had something to do, as well as Rose's bitter words; and after a gallant struggle he returned her her haughty stare, and addressed her thus: "Mademoiselle, I feel myself blush, but it is for you I blush, not for myself. This is what BECAME of me. I went out alone to explore; I fell into an ambuscade; I shot one of the enemy, and pinked another, but my arm being broken by a bullet, and my horse killed under me, the rascals got me. They took me about, tried to make a decoy of me as I have told you, and ended by throwing me into a dungeon. They loaded me with chains, too, though the walls were ten feet thick, and the door iron, and bolted and double-bolted outside. And there for months and years, in spite of wounds, hunger, thirst, and all the tortures those cowards made me suffer, I lived, because, Rose, I had promised some one at that gate there (and he turned suddenly and pointed to it) that I would come back alive. At last, one night, my jailer came to my cell drunk. I seized him by the throat and throttled him till he was insensible; his keys unlocked my fetters, and locked him in the cell, and I got safely outside. But there a sentinel saw me, and fired at me. He missed me but ran after me, and caught me. You see I was stiff, confined so long. He gave me a thrust of his bayonet; I flung my heavy keys fiercely in his face; he staggered; I wrested his piece from him, and disabled him."

"Ah!"

"I crossed the frontier in the night, and got to Bayonne; and thence, day and night, to Paris. There I met a reward for all my anguish. They gave me the epaulets of a colonel. See, here they are. France does not give these to traitors, young lady." He held them out to her in both hands. She eyed them half stupidly; all her thoughts were on the oak-tree hard by. She began to shudder. Camille was telling the truth. She felt that; she saw it; and Josephine was hearing it. "Ay! look at them, you naughty girl," said Camille, trying to be jocose over it all with his poor trembling lip. He went on to say that from the moment he had left dark Spain, and entered fair France everybody was so kind, so sympathizing. "They felt for the poor worn soldier coming back to his love. All but you, Rose. You told me I was a traitor to her and to France."

"I was told so," said Rose, faintly. She was almost at her wits' end what to say or do.

"Well, are you sorry or not sorry for saying such a cruel thing to a poor fellow?"

"Sorry, very sorry," whispered Rose. She could not persist in injustice, yet she did not want Josephine to hear.

"Then say no more about it; there's my hand. You are not a soldier, and did not know what you were talking about."

"I am very sorry I spoke so harshly to you. But you understand. How you look; how you pant."

"There, I will show you I forgive you. These epaulets, dear, I have never put them on. I said, no; Josephine shall put them on for me. I will take honor as well as happiness from her dear hand. But you are her sister, and what are epaulets compared with what she will give me? You shall put them on, dear. Come, then you will be sure I bear no malice."

Rose, faint at heart, consented in silence, and fastened on the epaulets. "Yes, Camille!" she cried, with sudden terror, "think of glory, now; nothing but glory."

"No one thinks of it more. But to-day how can I think of it, how can I give her a rival? To-day I am all love. Rose, no man ever loved a human creature as I love Josephine. Your mother is well, dear? All are well at Beaurepaire? Oh, where is she all this time? in the house?" He was moving quickly towards the house; but Rose instinctively put out her hand to stop him. He recoiled a little and winced.

"What is the matter?" cried she.

"Nothing, dear girl; you put your hand on my wound, that is all. What is that noise in the tree? Anybody listening to us?"

"I'll see," said Rose, with all a woman's wit, and whipped hastily round to hinder Camille from going. She found Josephine white as death, apparently fainting, and clutching at the tree convulsively with her nails. Such was the intensity of the situation that she left her beloved sister in that piteous state, and even hoped she would faint dead away, and so hear no more. She came back white, and told Camille it was only a bird got into the tree. "And to think you should be wounded," said she, to divert his attention from the tree.

"Yes," said he, "and it is rather inflamed, and has worried me all the way. You need not go telling Josephine, though. They wanted me to stop and lay up at Bayonne. How could I? And again at Paris. How could I? They said, 'You will die.'—'Not before I get to Beaurepaire,' said I. I could bear the motion of a horse no longer, so at the nearest town I asked for a carriage. Would you believe it? both his carriages were OUT AT A WEDDING. I could not wait till they came back. I had waited an eternity. I came on foot. I dragged my self along; the body was weak, but the heart was strong. A little way from here my wound seemed inclined to open. I pressed it together tight with my hand; you see I could not afford to lose any more blood, and so struggled on. 'Die?' said I, 'not before Beaurepaire.' And, O Rose! now I could be content to die—at her feet; for I am happy. Oh! I am happy beyond words to utter. What I have gone through! But I kept my word, and this is Beaurepaire. Hurrah!" and his pale cheek flushed, and his eye gleamed, and he waved his hat feebly over his head, "hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!"

"Oh, don't!—don't!—don't!" cried Rose wild with pity and dismay.

"How can I help?—I am mad with joy—hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!"

"No! no! no! no! no!"

"What is the matter?"

"And must I stab you worse than all your enemies have stabbed you?" sighed Rose, and tears of womanly pity now streamed down her cheeks.

Camille's mind began to misgive him. What was become of Josephine? she did not appear. He faltered out, "Your mother is well; all are well I hope. Oh, where is she?" and receiving no reply, began to tremble visibly with the fear of some terrible calamity.

Rose, with a sister fainting close by, and this poor lover trembling before her, lost all self-command, and began to wring her hands and cry wildly. "Camille," she almost screamed, "there is but one thing for you to do; leave Beaurepaire on the instant: fly from it; it is no place for you."

"She is dead," said Camille, very quietly.

When he said that, with an unnatural and monotonous calm such as precedes deliberate suicide, it flashed in one moment across Rose that it was much best he should think so.

She did not reply; but she drooped her head and let him think it.

"She would have come to me ere this if she was alive," said he. "You are all in white: they mourn in white for angels like her, that go to heaven, virgins. Oh! I was blind. You might have told me at once; you see I can bear it. What does it matter to one who loves as I love? It is only to give her one more proof I lived only for her. I would have died a hundred times but for my promise to her. Yes, I am coming, love; I am coming."

He fell on his knees and smiled, and whispered, "I am coming, Josephine, I am coming."

A sob and a moan as of a creature dying in anguish answered him.

Rose screamed with terror when she heard it.

Camille rose to his feet, awestruck. "That was her voice, behind this tree," he whispered.

"No, no," cried Rose; "it was me."

But at that moment a rustle and a rush was heard of some one darting out of the tree.

Camille darted furiously round it in the same direction. Rose tried to stop him, but was too late. The next moment Raynal's wife was in his arms.



CHAPTER X.

Josephine wrestled long and terribly with nature in that old oak-tree. But who can so struggle forever? Anguish, remorse, horror, despair, and love wrenched her to and fro; and O mysterious human heart! gleams of a mad fitful joy shot through her, coming quick as lightning, going as quickly, and leaving the despair darker. And then the fierce struggle of the soul to make itself heard! More than once she had to close her mouth with her hand: more than once she seized her throat not to cry out. But as the struggle endured, she got weaker and weaker, and nature mightier and mightier. And when the wounded hero fell on his knees so close to her; when he who had resisted death so bravely for her, prepared to give up life calmly for her, her bosom rose beyond all control: it seemed to fill to choking, then to split wide open and give the struggling soul passage in one gasping sob and heart-stricken cry. Could she have pent this in she must have died.

It betrayed her. She felt it had: so then came the woman's instinct—flight: the coward's impulse—flight: the chaste wife's inspiration—flight. She rushed from her hiding-place and made wildly for the house.

But, unluckily, Camille was at that moment darting round the tree: she ran right into the danger she meant to flee. He caught her in his arms. He held her irresistibly. "I have got her; I have got her," he shouted in wild triumph. "No! I will not let you go. None but God shall ever take you from me, and he has spared you to me. You are not dead: you have kept faith as I have: you have lived. See! look at me. I am alive, I am well, I am happy. I told Rose that I suffered. If I had suffered I should remember it. It is all gone at sight of you, my love! my love! Oh, my Josephine! my love!"

His arm was firm round her waist. His glowing eyes poured love upon her. She felt his beating heart.

All that passed in her then, what mortal can say? She seemed two women: that part of her which could not get away from his strong arm lost all strength to resist, it yielded and thrilled under his embrace, her bosom heaving madly: all that was free writhed away from him; her face was averted with a glare of terror, and both her hands put up between his eyes and it.

"You turn away your head. Rose, she turns away. Speak for me. Scold her; for I don't know how to scold her. No answer from either; oh, what has turned your hearts against me so?"

"Camille," cried Rose—the tears streaming down her cheeks—"my poor Camille! leave Beaurepaire. Oh, leave it at once."

Returned towards her with a look of inquiry.

At that Josephine, like some feeble but nimble wild creature on whom a grasp has relaxed, writhed away from him and got free: "Farewell! Farewell!" she cried, in despair's own voice, and made swiftly for the house.

Camille stood aghast, and did not follow her.

Now ere she had gone many steps who should meet her right in front but Jacintha.

"Madame Raynal, the baroness's carriage is just in sight. I thought you'd like to know." Then she bawled proudly to Rose, "I was the first to call her madame;" and off went Jacintha convinced she had done something very clever.

This blow turned those three to stone.

Josephine had no longer the power or the wish to fly. "Better so," she thought, and she stood cowering.

The great passions that had spoken so loud were struck dumb, and a deep silence fell upon the place. Madame Raynal's quivering eye turned slowly and askant towards Camille, but stopped in terror ere it could see him. For she knew by this fearful stillness that the truth was creeping on Camille. And so did Rose.

At last Camille spoke one word in a low whisper.

"Madame?"

Dead silence.

"White? both in white?"

Rose came between him and Josephine, and sobbed out, "Camille, it was our doing. We drove her to it. O sir, look how afraid of you she is. Do not reproach her, if you are a man."

He waved her out of his way as if she had been some idle feather, and almost staggered up to Josephine.

"It is for you to speak, my betrothed: are you married?"

The poor creature, true to her nature, was thinking more of him than herself. Even in her despair it flashed across her, "If he knew all, he too would be wretched for life. If I let him think ill of me he may be happy one day." She cowered the picture of sorrow and tongue-tied guilt.

"Are you a wife?"

"Yes."

He winced and quivered as if a bullet had pierced him.

"This is how I came to be suspected; she I loved was false."

"Yes, Camille."

"No, no!" cried Rose; "don't believe HER: she never suspected you. We have brought her to this, we alone."

"Be silent, Rose! oh, be silent!" gasped Josephine.

"I lived for you: I would have died for you; you could not even wait for me."

A low moan, but not a word of excuse.

"What can I do for you now?"

"Forget me, Camille," said she despairingly, doggedly.

"Forget you? never, never! there is but one thing I can do to show you how I loved you: I will forgive you, and begone. Whither shall I go? whither shall I go now?"

"Camile, your words stab her."

"Let none speak but I," said Camille; "none but I have the right to speak. Poor weak angel that loved yet could not wait: I forgive you. Be happy, if you can; I bid you be hap-py."

The quiet, despairing tones died away, and with them life seemed to end to her, and hope to go out. He turned his back quickly on her. He cried hoarsely, "To the army! Back to the army, and a soldier's grave!" Then with a prodigious effort he drew himself haughtily up in marching attitude. He took three strides, erect and fiery and bold.

At the next something seemed to snap asunder in the great heart, and the worn body that heart had held up so long, rolled like a dead log upon the ground with a tremendous fall.



CHAPTER XI.

The baroness and Aubertin were just getting out of their carriage, when suddenly they heard shrieks of terror in the Pleasaunce. They came with quaking hearts as fast as their old limbs would carry them. They found Rose and Josephine crouched over the body of a man, an officer.

Rose was just tearing open his collar and jacket. Dard and Jacintha had run from the kitchen at the screams. Camille lay on his back, white and motionless.

The doctor was the first to come up. "Who! what is this? I seem to know his face." Then shaking his head, "Whoever it is, it is a bad case. Stand away, ladies. Let me feel his pulse."

Whilst the old man was going stiffly down on one knee, Jacintha uttered a cry of terror. "See, see! his shirt! that red streak! Ah, ah! it is getting bigger and bigger:" and she turned faint in a moment, and would have fallen but for Dard.

The doctor looked. "All the better," said he firmly. "I thought he was dead. His blood flows; then I will save him. Don't clutch me so, Josephine; don't cling to me like that. Now is the time to show your breed: not turn sick at the sight of a little blood, like that foolish creature, but help me save him."

"Take him in-doors," cried the baroness.

"Into our house, mamma?" gasped Rose; "no, no."

"What," said the baroness, "a wounded soldier who has fought for France! leave him to lie and die outside my door: what would my son say to that? He is a soldier himself."

Rose cast a hasty look at Josephine. Josephine's eyes were bent on the ground, and her hands clenched and trembling.

"Now, Jacintha, you be off," said the doctor. "I can't have cowards about him to make the others as bad. Go and stew down a piece of good beef for him. Stew it in red wine and water."

"That I will: poor thing!"

"Why, I know him," said the baroness suddenly; "it is an old acquaintance, young Dujardin: you remember, Josephine. I used to suspect him of a fancy for you, poor fellow! Why, he must have come here to see us, poor soul."

"No matter who it is; it is a man. Now, girls, have you courage, have you humanity? Then come one on each side of him and take hands beneath his back, while I lift his head and Dard his legs."

"And handle him gently whatever you do," said Dard. "I know what it is to be wounded."

These four carried the lifeless burden very slowly and gently across the Pleasaunce to the house, then with more difficulty and caution up the stairs.

All the while the sisters' hands griped one another tight beneath the lifeless burden, and spoke to one another. And Josephine's arm upheld tenderly but not weakly the hero she had struck down. She avoided Rose's eye, her mother's, and even the doctor's: one gasping sob escaped her as she walked with head half averted, and vacant, terror-stricken eyes, and her victim on her sustaining arm.

The doctor selected the tapestried chamber for him as being most airy. Then he ordered the women out, and with Dard's help undressed the still insensible patient.

Josephine sat down on the stairs in gloomy silence, her eyes on the ground, like one waiting for her deathblow.

Rose, sick at heart, sat silent too at some distance. At last she said faintly, "Have we done well?"

"I don't know," said Josephine doggedly. Her eyes never left the ground.

"We could not let him die for want of care."

"He will not thank us. Better for him to die than live. Better for me."

At this instant Dard came running down. "Good news, mesdemoiselles, good news! the wound runs all along; it is not deep, like mine was. He has opened his eyes and shut them again. The dear good doctor stopped the blood in a twinkle. The doctor says he'll be bound to save him. I must run and tell Jacintha. She is taking on in the kitchen."

Josephine, who had risen eagerly from her despairing posture, clasped her hands together, then lifted up her voice and wept. "He will live! he will live!"

When she had wept a long while, she said to Rose, "Come, sister, help your poor Josephine."

"Yes, love, what shall we do?"

"My duty," faltered Josephine. "An hour ago it seemed so sweet," and she fell to weeping patiently again. They went to Josephine's room. She crept slowly to a wardrobe, and took out a gray silk dress.

"Oh, never mind for to-day," cried Rose.

"Help me, Rose. It is for myself as well; to remind me every moment I am Madame Raynal."

They put the gray gown on her, both weeping patiently. It will be known at the last day, all that honest women have suffered weeping silently in this noisy world.

Camille soon recovered his senses and a portion of his strength: then the irritation of his wound brought on fever. This in turn retired before the doctor's remedies and a sound constitution, but it left behind it a great weakness and general prostration. And in this state the fate of the body depends greatly on the mind.

The baroness and the doctor went constantly to see him, and soothe him: he smiled and thanked them, but his eager eyes watched the door for one who came not.

When he got well enough to leave his bed the largest couch was sent up to him from the saloon; a kind hand lined the baron's silk dressing-gown for him warm and soft and nice; and he would sit or lie on his couch, or take two turns in the room leaning upon Rose's shoulder, and glad of the support; and he looked piteously in her eyes when she came and when she went. Rose looked down; she could do nothing, she could say nothing.

With his strength, Camille lost a portion of his pride: he pined for a sight of her he no longer respected; pined for her, as the thirsty pine for water in Sahara.

At last one day he spoke out. "How kind you are to me, Rose! how kind you all are—but one."

He waited in hopes she would say something, but she held her tongue.

"At least tell me why it is. Is she ashamed? Is she afraid?"

"Neither."

"She hates me: it is true, then, that we hate those whom we have wounded. Cruel, cruel Josephine! Oh, heart of marble against which my heart has wrecked itself forever!"

"No, no! She is anything but cruel: but she is Madame Raynal."

"Ah! I forgot. But have I no claim on her? Nearly four years she has been my betrothed. What have I done? Was I ever false to her? I could forgive her for what she has done to me, but she cannot forgive me. Does she mean never to see me again?"

"Ask yourself what good could come of it."

"Very well," said Camille, with a malicious smile. "I am in her way. I see what she wants; she shall have it."

Rose carried these words to Josephine. They went through her like a sword.

Rose pitied her. Rose had a moment's weakness.

"Let us go to him," she said; "anything is better than this."

"Rose, I dare not," was the wise reply.

But the next day early, Josephine took Rose to a door outside the house, a door that had long been disused. Nettles grew before it. She produced a key and with great difficulty opened this door. It led to the tapestried chamber, and years ago they used to steal up it and peep into the room.

Rose scarcely needed to be told that she was to watch Camille, and report to her. In truth, it was a mysterious, vague protection against a danger equally mysterious. Yet it made Josephine easier. But so unflinching was her prudence that she never once could be prevailed on to mount those stairs, and peep at Camille herself. "I must starve my heart, not feed it," said she. And she grew paler and more hollow-eyed day by day.

Yet this was the same woman who showed such feebleness and irresolution when Raynal pressed her to marry him. But then dwarfs feebly drew her this way and that. Now giants fought for her. Between a feeble inclination and a feeble disinclination her dead heart had drifted to and fro. Now honor, duty, gratitude,—which last with her was a passion,—dragged her one way: love, pity, and remorse another.

Not one of these giants would relax his grasp, and nothing yielded except her vital powers. Yes; her temper, one of the loveliest Heaven ever gave a human creature, was soured at times.

Was it a wonder? There lay the man she loved pining for her; cursing her for her cruelty, and alternately praying Heaven to forgive him and to bless her: sighing, at intervals, all the day long, so loud, so deep, so piteously, as if his heart broke with each sigh; and sometimes, for he little knew, poor soul, that any human eye was upon him, casting aside his manhood in his despair, and flinging himself on the very floor, and muffling his head, and sobbing; he a hero.

And here was she pining in secret for him who pined for her? "I am not a woman at all," said she, who was all woman. "I am crueller to him than a tiger or any savage creature is to the victim she tears. I must cure him of his love for me; and then die; for what shall I have to live for? He weeps, he sighs, he cries for Josephine."