"I don't know," said Josephine helplessly.

"You—don't—know!" cried the doctor, looking at her in utter amazement.

"It is the answer of a mad woman, is it not? Doctor, I am little better. My foot has slipped on the edge of a precipice. I close my eyes, and let myself glide down it. What will become of me?"

"All shall be well," said Aubertin, "provided you do not still love that man."

Josephine did not immediately reply: her thoughts turned inwards. The good doctor was proceeding to congratulate her on being cured of a fatal passion, when she stopped him with wonder in her face. "Not love him! How can I help loving him? I was his betrothed. I wronged him in my thoughts. War, prison, anguish, could not kill him; he loved me so. He struggled bleeding to my feet; and could I let him die, after all? Could I be crueller than prison, and torture, and despair?"

The doctor sighed deeply; but, arming himself with the necessary resolution, he sternly replied, "A woman of your name cannot vacillate between love and honor; such vacillations have but one end. I will not let you drift a moral wreck between passion and virtue; and that is what it will come to if you hesitate now."

"Hesitate! Who can say I have hesitated where my honor was concerned? You can read our bodies then, but not our hearts. What! you see me so pale, forlorn, and dead, and that does not tell you I have bid Camille farewell forever? That we might be safer still I have not even told him he is a father: was ever woman so cruel as I am? I have written him but one letter, and in that I must deceive him. I told him I thought I might one day be happy, if I could hear that he did not give way to despair. I told him we must never meet again in this world. So now come what will: show me my duty and I will do it. This endless deceit burns my heart. Shall I tell my husband? It will be but one pang more, one blush more for me. But my mother!" and, thus appealed to, Dr. Aubertin felt, for the first time, all the difficulty of the situation he had undertaken to cure. He hesitated, he was embarrassed.

"Ah," said Josephine, "you see." Then, after a short silence, she said despairingly, "This is my only hope: that poor Raynal will be long absent, and that ere he returns mamma will lie safe from sorrow and shame in the little chapel. Doctor, when a woman of my age forms such wishes as these, I think you might pity her, and forgive her ill-treatment of you, for she cannot be very happy. Ah me! ah me! ah me!"

"Courage, poor soul! All is now in my hands, and I will save you," said the doctor, his voice trembling in spite of him. "Guilt lies in the intention. A more innocent woman than you does not breathe. Two courses lay open to you: to leave this house with Camille Dujardin, or to dismiss him, and live for your hard duty till it shall please Heaven to make that duty easy (no middle course was tenable for a day); of these two paths you chose the right one, and, having chosen, I really think you are not called on to reveal your misfortune, and make those unhappy to whose happiness you have sacrificed your own for years to come."

"Forever," said Josephine quietly.

"The young use that word lightly. The old have almost ceased to use it. They have seen how few earthly things can conquer time."

He resumed, "You think only of others, Josephine, but I shall think of you as well. I shall not allow your life to be wasted in a needless struggle against nature." Then turning to Rose, who had glided into the room, and stood amazed, "Her griefs were as many before her child was born, yet her health stood firm. Why? because nature was on her side. Now she is sinking into the grave. Why? because she is defying nature. Nature intended her to be pressing her child to her bosom day and night; instead of that, a peasant woman at Frejus nurses the child, and the mother pines at Beaurepaire."

At this, Josephine leaned her face on her hands on the doctor's shoulder. In this attitude she murmured to him, "I have never seen him since I left Frejus." Dr. Aubertin sighed for her. Emboldened by this, she announced her intention of going to Frejus the very next day to see her little Henri. But to this Dr. Aubertin demurred. "What, another journey to Frejus?" said he, "when the first has already roused Edouard's suspicions; I can never consent to that."

Then Josephine surprised them both. She dropped her coaxing voice and pecked the doctor like an irritated pigeon. "Take care," said she, "don't be too cruel to me. You see I am obedient, resigned. I have given up all I lived for: but if I am never to have my little boy's arms round me to console me, then—why torment me any longer? Why not say to me, 'Josephine, you have offended Heaven; pray for pardon, and die'?"

Then the doctor was angry in his turn. "Oh, go then," said he, "go to Frejus; you will have Edouard Riviere for a companion this time. Your first visit roused his suspicions. So before you go tell your mother all; for since she is sure to find it out, she had better hear it from you than from another."

"Doctor, have pity on me," said Josephine.

"You have no heart," said Rose. "She shall see him though, in spite of you."

"Oh, yes! he has a heart," said Josephine: "he is my best friend. He will let me see my boy."

All this, and the tearful eyes and coaxing yet trembling voice, was hard to resist. But Aubertin saw clearly, and stood firm. He put his handkerchief to his eyes a moment: then took the pining young mother's hand. "And, do you think," said he, "I do not pity you and love your boy? Ah! he will never want a father whilst I live; and from this moment he is under my care. I will go to see him; I will bring you news, and all in good time; I will place him where you shall visit him without imprudence; but, for the present, trust a wiser head than yours or Rose's; and give me your sacred promise not to go to Frejus."

Weighed down by his good-sense and kindness, Josephine resisted no longer in words. She just lifted her hands in despair and began to cry. It was so piteous, Aubertin was ready to yield in turn, and consent to any imprudence, when he met with an unexpected ally.

"Promise," said Rose, doggedly.

Josephine looked at her calmly through her tears.

"Promise, dear," repeated Rose, and this time with an intonation so fine that it attracted Josephine's notice, but not the doctor's. It was followed by a glance equally subtle.

"I promise," said Josephine, with her eye fixed inquiringly on her sister.

For once she could not make the telegraph out: but she could see it was playing, and that was enough. She did what Rose bid her; she promised not to go to Frejus without leave.

Finding her so submissive all of a sudden, he went on to suggest that she must not go kissing every child she saw. "Edouard tells me he saw you kissing a beggar's brat. The young rogue was going to quiz you about it at the dinner-table; luckily, he told me his intention, and I would not let him. I said the baroness would be annoyed with you for descending from your dignity—and exposing a noble family to fleas—hush! here he is."

"Tiresome!" muttered Rose, "just when"—

Edouard came forward with a half-vexed face.

However, he turned it off into play. "What have you been saying to her, monsieur, to interest her so? Give me a leaf out of your book. I need it."

The doctor was taken aback for a moment, but at last he said slyly, "I have been proposing to her to name the day. She says she must consult you before she decides that."

"Oh, you wicked doctor!—and consult HIM of all people!"

"So be off, both of you, and don't reappear before me till it is settled."

Edouard's eyes sparkled. Rose went out with a face as red as fire.

It was a balmy evening. Edouard was to leave them for a week the next day. They were alone: Rose was determined he should go away quite happy. Everything was in Edouard's favor: he pleaded his cause warmly: she listened tenderly: this happy evening her piquancy and archness seemed to dissolve into tenderness as she and Edouard walked hand in hand under the moon: a tenderness all the more heavenly to her devoted lover, that she was not one of those angels who cloy a man by invariable sweetness.

For a little while she forgot everything but her companion. In that soft hour he won her to name the day, after her fashion.

"Josephine goes to Paris with the doctor in about three weeks," murmured she.

"And you will stay behind, all alone?"

"Alone? that shall depend on you, monsieur."

On this Edouard caught her for the first time in his arms.

She made a faint resistance.

"Seal me that promise, sweet one!"

"No! no!—there!"

He pressed a delicious first kiss upon two velvet lips that in their innocence scarcely shunned the sweet attack.

For all that, the bond was no sooner sealed after this fashion, than the lady's cheek began to burn.

"Suppose we go in NOW?" said she, dryly.

"Ah, not yet."

"It is late, dear Edouard."

And with these words something returned to her mind with its full force: something that Edouard had actually made her forget. She wanted to get rid of him now.

"Edouard," said she, "can you get up early in the morning? If you can, meet me here to-morrow before any of them are up; then we can talk without interruption."

Edouard was delighted.

"Eight o'clock?"

"Sooner if you like. Mamma bade me come and read to her in her room to-night. She will be waiting for me. Is it not tiresome?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, we must not mind that, dear; in three weeks' time we are to have too much of one another, you know, instead of too little."

"Too much! I shall never have enough of you. I shall hate the night which will rob me of the sight of you for so many hours in the twenty-four."

"If you can't see me, perhaps you may hear me; my tongue runs by night as well as by day."

"Well, that is a comfort," said Edouard, gravely. "Yes, little quizzer, I would rather hear you scold than an angel sing. Judge, then, what music it is when you say you love me!"

"I love you, Edouard."

Edouard kissed her hand warmly, and then looked irresolutely at her face.

"No, no!" said she, laughing and blushing. "How rude you are. Next time we meet."

"That is a bargain. But I won't go till you say you love me again.

"Edouard, don't be silly. I am ashamed of saying the same thing so often—I won't say it any more. What is the use? You know I love you. There, I HAVE said it: how stupid!"

"Adieu, then, my wife that is to be."

"Adieu! dear Edouard."

"My hus—go on—my hus—"

"My huswife that shall be."

Then they walked very slowly towards the house, and once more Rose left quizzing, and was all tenderness.

"Will you not come in, and bid them 'good-night'?"

"No, my own; I am in heaven. Common faces—common voices would bring me down to earth. Let me be alone;—your sweet words ringing in my ear. I will dilute you with nothing meaner than the stars. See how bright they shine in heaven; but not so bright as you shine in my heart."

"Dear Edouard, you flatter me, you spoil me. Alas! why am I not more worthy of your love?"

"More worthy! How can that be?"

Rose sighed.

"But I will atone for all. I will make you a better—(here she substituted a full stop for a substantive)—than you expect. You will see else."

She lingered at the door: a proof that if Edouard, at that particular moment, had seized another kiss, there would have been no very violent opposition or offence.

But he was not so impudent as some. He had been told to wait till the next meeting for that. He prayed Heaven to bless her, and so the affianced lovers parted for the night.

It was about nine o'clock. Edouard, instead of returning to his lodgings, started down towards the town, to conclude a bargain with the innkeeper for an English mare he was in treaty for. He wanted her for to-morrow's work; so that decided him to make the purchase. In purchases, as in other matters, a feather turns the balanced scale. He sauntered leisurely down. It was a very clear night; the full moon and the stars shining silvery and vivid. Edouard's heart swelled with joy. He was loved after all, deeply loved; and in three short weeks he was actually to be Rose's husband: her lord and master. How like a heavenly dream it all seemed—the first hopeless courtship, and now the wedding fixed! But it was no dream; he felt her soft words still murmur music at his heart, and the shadow of her velvet lips slept upon his own.

He had strolled about a league when he heard the ring of a horse's hoofs coming towards him, accompanied by a clanking noise; it came nearer and nearer, till it reached a hill that lay a little ahead of Edouard; then the sounds ceased; the cavalier was walking his horse up the hill.

Presently, as if they had started from the earth, up popped between Edouard and the sky, first a cocked hat that seemed in that light to be cut with a razor out of flint; then the wearer, phosphorescent here and there; so brightly the keen moonlight played on his epaulets and steel scabbard. A step or two nearer, and Edouard gave a great shout; it was Colonel Raynal.

After the first warm greeting, and questions and answers, Raynal told him he was on his way to the Rhine with despatches.

"To the Rhine?"

"I am allowed six days to get there. I made a calculation, and found I could give Beaurepaire half a day. I shall have to make up for it by hard riding. You know me; always in a hurry. It is Bonaparte's fault this time. He is always in a hurry too."

"Why, colonel," said Edouard, "let us make haste then. Mind they go early to rest at the chateau."

"But you are not coming my way, youngster?"

"Not coming your way? Yes, but I am. Yours is a face I don't see every day, colonel; besides I would not miss THEIR faces, especially the baroness's and Madame Raynal's, at sight of you; and, besides,"—and the young gentleman chuckled to himself, and thought of Rose's words, "the next time we meet;" well, this will be the next time. "May I jump up behind?"

Colonel Raynal nodded assent. Edouard took a run, and lighted like a monkey on the horse's crupper. He pranced and kicked at this unexpected addition; but the spur being promptly applied to his flanks, he bounded off with a snort that betrayed more astonishment than satisfaction, and away they cantered to Beaurepaire, without drawing rein.

"There," said Edouard, "I was afraid they would be gone to bed; and they are. The very house seems asleep—fancy—at half-past ten."

"That is a pity," said Raynal, "for this chateau is the stronghold of etiquette. They will be two hours dressing before they will come out and shake hands. I must put my horse into the stable. Go you and give the alarm."

"I will, colonel. Stop, first let me see whether none of them are up, after all."

And Edouard walked round the chateau, and soon discovered a light at one window, the window of the tapestried room. Running round the other way he came slap upon another light: this one was nearer the ground. A narrow but massive door, which he had always seen not only locked but screwed up, was wide open; and through the aperture the light of a candle streamed out and met the moonlight streaming in.

"Hallo!" cried Edouard.

He stopped, turned, and looked in.

"Hallo!" he cried again much louder.

A young woman was sleeping with her feet in the silvery moonlight, and her head in the orange-colored blaze of a flat candle, which rested on the next step above of a fine stone staircase, whose existence was now first revealed to the inquisitive Edouard.

Coming plump upon all this so unexpectedly, he quite started.

"Why, Jacintha!"

He touched her on the shoulder to wake her. No. Jacintha was sleeping as only tired domestics can sleep. He might have taken the candle and burnt her gown off her back. She had found a step that fitted into the small of her back, and another that supported her head, and there she was fast as a door.

At this moment Raynal's voice was heard calling him.

"There is a light in that bedroom."

"It is not a bedroom, colonel; it is our sitting-room now. We shall find them all there, or at least the young ladies; and perhaps the doctor. The baroness goes to bed early. Meantime I can show you one of our dramatis personae, and an important one too. She rules the roost."

He took him mysteriously and showed him Jacintha.

Moonlight by itself seems white, and candlelight by itself seems yellow; but when the two come into close contrast at night, candle turns a reddish flame, and moonlight a bluish gleam.

So Jacintha, with her shoes in this celestial sheen, and her face in that demoniacal glare, was enough to knock the gazer's eye out.

"Make a good sentinel—this one," said Raynal—"an outlying picket for instance, on rough ground, in front of the enemy's riflemen."

"Ha! ha! colonel! Let us see where this staircase leads. I have an idea it will prove a short cut."

"Where to?"

"To the saloon, or somewhere, or else to some of Jacintha's haunts. Serve her right for going to sleep at the mouth of her den."

"Forward then—no, halt! Suppose it leads to the bedrooms? Mind this is a thundering place for ceremony. We shall get drummed out of the barracks if we don't mind our etiquette."

At this they hesitated; and Edouard himself thought, on the whole, it would be better to go and hammer at the front door.

Now while they hesitated, a soft delicious harmony of female voices suddenly rose, and seemed to come and run round the walls. The men looked at one another in astonishment; for the effect was magical. The staircase being enclosed on all sides with stone walls and floored with stone, they were like flies inside a violoncello; the voices rang above, below, and on every side of the vibrating walls. In some epochs spirits as hardy as Raynal's, and wits as quick as Riviere's, would have fled then and there to the nearest public, and told over cups how they had heard the dames of Beaurepaire, long since dead, holding their revel, and the conscious old devil's nest of a chateau quivering to the ghostly strains.

But this was an incredulous age. They listened, and listened, and decided the sounds came from up-stairs.

"Let us mount, and surprise these singing witches," said Edouard.

"Surprise them! what for? It is not the enemy—for once. What is the good of surprising our friends?"

Storming parties and surprises were no novelty and therefore no treat to Raynal.

"It will be so delightful to see their faces at first sight of you. O colonel, for my sake! Don't spoil it by going tamely in at the front door, after coming at night from Egypt for half an hour."

Raynal grumbled something about its being a childish trick; but to please Edouard consented at last; only stipulated for a light: "or else," said he, "we shall surprise ourselves instead with a broken neck, going over ground we don't know to surprise the natives—our skirmishers got nicked that way now and then in Egypt."

"Yes, colonel, I will go first with Jacintha's candle." Edouard mounted the stairs on tiptoe. Raynal followed. The solid stone steps did not prate. The men had mounted a considerable way, when puff a blast of wind came through a hole, and out went Edouard's candle. He turned sharply round to Raynal. "Peste!" said he in a vicious whisper. But the other laid his hand on his shoulder and whispered, "Look to the front." He looked, and, his own candle being out, saw a glimmer on ahead. He crept towards it. It was a taper shooting a feeble light across a small aperture. They caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a small apartment. Yet Edouard recognized the carpet of the tapestried room—which was a very large room. Creeping a yard nearer, he discovered that it was the tapestried room, and that what had seemed the further wall was only the screen, behind which were lights, and two women singing a duet.

He whispered to Raynal, "It is the tapestried room."

"Is it a sitting-room?" whispered Raynal.

"Yes! yes! Mind and not knock your foot against the wood."

And Raynal went softly up and put his foot quietly through the aperture, which he now saw was made by a panel drawn back close to the ground; and stood in the tapestried chamber. The carpet was thick; the voices favored the stealthy advance; the floor of the old house was like a rock; and Edouard put his face through the aperture, glowing all over with anticipation of the little scream of joy that would welcome his friend dropping in so nice and suddenly from Egypt.

The feeling was rendered still more piquant by a sharp curiosity that had been growing on him for some minutes past. For why was this passage opened to-night?—he had never seen it opened before. And why was Jacintha lying sentinel at the foot of the stairs?

But this was not all. Now that they were in the room both men became conscious of another sound besides the ladies' voices—a very peculiar sound. It also came from behind the screen. They both heard it, and showed, by the puzzled looks they cast at one another, that neither could make out what on earth it was. It consisted of a succession of little rustles, followed by little thumps on the floor.

But what was curious, too, this rustle, thump—rustle, thump—fell exactly into the time of the music; so that, clearly, either the rustle thump was being played to the tune, or the tune sung to the rustle thump.

This last touch of mystery inflamed Edouard's impatience beyond bearing: he pointed eagerly and merrily to the corner of the screen. Raynal obeyed, and stepped very slowly and cautiously towards it.

Rustle, thump! rustle, thump! rustle, thump! with the rhythm of harmonious voices.

Edouard got his head and foot into the room without taking his eye off Raynal.

Rustle, thump! rustle, thump! rustle, thump!

Raynal was now at the screen, and quietly put his head round it, and his hand upon it.

Edouard was bursting with expectation.

No result. What is this? Don't they see him? Why does he not speak to them? He seems transfixed.

Rustle, thump! rustle, thump; accompanied now for a few notes by one voice only, Rose's.

Suddenly there burst a shriek from Josephine, so loud, so fearful, that it made even Raynal stagger back a step, the screen in his hand.

Then another scream of terror and anguish from Rose. Then a fainter cry, and the heavy helpless fall of a human body.

Raynal sprang forward whirling the screen to the earth in terrible agitation, and Edouard bounded over it as it fell at his feet. He did not take a second step. The scene that caught his eye stupefied and paralyzed him in full career, and froze him to the spot with amazement and strange misgivings.



CHAPTER XIX.

To return for a moment to Rose. She parted from Edouard, and went in at the front door: but the next moment she opened it softly and watched her lover unseen. "Dear Edouard!" she murmured: and then she thought, "how sad it is that I must deceive him, even to-night: must make up an excuse to get him from me, when we were so happy together. Ah! he little knows how I shall welcome our wedding-day. When once I can see my poor martyr on the road to peace and content under the good doctor's care. And oh! the happiness of having no more secrets from him I love! Dear Edouard! when once we are married, I never, never, will have a secret from you again—I swear it."

As a comment on these words she now stepped cautiously out, and peered in every direction.

"St—st!" she whispered. No answer came to this signal.

Rose returned into the house and bolted the door inside. She went up to the tapestried room, and found the doctor in the act of wishing Josephine good-night. The baroness, fatigued a little by her walk, had mounted no higher than her own bedroom, which was on the first floor just under the tapestried room. Rose followed the doctor out. "Dear friend, one word. Josephine talked of telling Raynal. You have not encouraged her to do that?"

"Certainly not, while he is in Egypt."

"Still less on his return. Doctor, you don't know that man. Josephine does not know him. But I do. He would kill her if he knew. He would kill her that minute. He would not wait: he would not listen to excuses: he is a man of iron. Or if he spared her he would kill Camille: and that would destroy her by the cruellest of all deaths! My friend, I am a wicked, miserable girl. I am the cause of all this misery!"

She then told Aubertin all about the anonymous letter, and what Raynal had said to her in consequence.

"He never would have married her had he known she loved another. He asked me was it so. I told him a falsehood. At least I equivocated, and to equivocate with one so loyal and simple was to deceive him. I am the only sinner: that sweet angel is the only sufferer. Is this the justice of Heaven? Doctor, my remorse is great. No one knows what I feel when I look at my work. Edouard thinks I love her so much better than I do him. He is wrong: it is not love only, it is pity: it is remorse for the sorrow I have brought on her, and the wrong I have done poor Raynal."

The high-spirited girl was greatly agitated: and Aubertin, though he did not acquit her of all blame, soothed her, and made excuses for her.

"We must not always judge by results," said he. "Things turned unfortunately. You did for the best. I forgive you for one. That is, I will forgive you if you promise not to act again without my advice."

"Oh, never! never!"

"And, above all, no imprudence about that child. In three little weeks they will be together without risk of discovery. Well, you don't answer me."

Rose's blood turned cold. "Dear friend," she stammered, "I quite agree with you."

"Promise, then."

"Not to let Josephine go to Frejus?" said Rose hastily. "Oh, yes! I promise."

"You are a good girl," said Aubertin. "You have a will of your own. But you can submit to age and experience." The doctor then kissed her, and bade her farewell.

"I leave for Paris at six in the morning," he said. "I will not try your patience or hers unnecessarily. Perhaps it will not be three weeks ere she sees her child under her friend's roof."

The moment Rose was alone, she sat down and sighed bitterly. "There is no end to it," she sobbed despairingly. "It is like a spider's web: every struggle to be free but multiplies the fine yet irresistible thread that seems to bind me. And to-night I thought to be so happy; instead of that, he has left me scarce the heart to do what I have to do."

She went back to the room, opened a window, and put out a white handkerchief, then closed the window down on it.

Then she went to Josephine's bedroom-door: it opened on the tapestried room.

"Josephine," she cried, "don't go to bed just yet."

"No, love. What are you doing? I want to talk to you. Why did you say promise? and what did you mean by looking at me so? Shall I come out to you?"

"Not just yet," said Rose; she then glided into the corridor, and passed her mother's room and the doctor's, and listened to see if all was quiet. While she was gone Josephine opened her door; but not seeing Rose in the sitting-room, retired again.

Rose returned softly, and sat down with her head in her hand, in a calm attitude belied by her glancing eye, and the quick tapping of her other hand upon the table.

Presently she raised her head quickly; a sound had reached her ear,—a sound so slight that none but a high-strung ear could have caught it. It was like a mouse giving a single scratch against a stone wall.

Rose coughed slightly.

On this a clearer sound was heard, as of a person scratching wood with the finger-nail. Rose darted to the side of the room, pressed against the wall, and at the same time put her other hand against the rim of one of the panels and pushed it laterally; it yielded, and at the opening stood Jacintha in her cloak and bonnet.

"Yes," said Jacintha, "under my cloak—look!"

"Ah! you found the things on the steps?"

"Yes! I nearly tumbled over them. Have you locked that door?"

"No, but I will." And Rose glided to the door and locked it. Then she put the screen up between Josephine's room and the open panel: then she and Jacintha were wonderfully busy on the other side the screen, but presently Rose said, "This is imprudent; you must go down to the foot of the stairs and wait till I call you."

Jacintha pleaded hard against this arrangement, and represented that there was no earthly chance of any one coming to that part of the chateau.

"No matter; I will be guarded on every side."

"Mustn't I stop and just see her happy for once?"

"No, my poor Jacintha, you must hear it from my lips."

Jacintha retired to keep watch as she was bid. Rose went to Josephine's room, and threw her arms round her neck and kissed her vehemently. Josephine returned her embrace, then held her out at arm's length and looked at her.

"Your eyes are red, yet your little face is full of joy. There, you smile."

"I can't help that; I am so happy."

"I am glad of it. Are you coming to bed?"

"Not yet. I invite you to take a little walk with me first. Come!" and she led the way slowly, looking back with infinite archness and tenderness.

"You almost frighten me," said Josephine; "it is not like you to be all joy when I am sad. Three whole weeks more!"

"That is it. Why are you sad? because the doctor would not let you go to Frejus. And why am I not sad? because I had already thought of a way to let you see Edouard without going so far."

"Rose! O Rose! O Rose!"

"This way—come!" and she smiled and beckoned with her finger, while Josephine followed like one under a spell, her bosom heaving, her eye glancing on every side, hoping some strange joy, yet scarce daring to hope.

Rose drew back the screen, and there was a sweet little berceau that had once been Josephine's own, and in it, sunk deep in snow-white lawn, was a sleeping child, that lay there looking as a rose might look could it fall upon new-fallen snow.

At sight of it Josephine uttered a little cry, not loud but deep—ay, a cry to bring tears into the eye of the hearer, and she stood trembling from head to foot, her hands clasped, and her eye fascinated and fixed on the cradle.

"My child under this roof! What have you done?" but her eye, fascinated and fixed, never left the cradle.

"I saw you languishing, dying, for want of him."

"Oh, if anybody should come?" But her eye never stirred an inch from the cradle.

"No, no, no! the door is locked. Jacintha watches below; there is no dan—Ah, oh, poor sister!"

For, as Rose was speaking, the young mother sprang silently upon her child. You would have thought she was going to kill him; her head reared itself again and again like a crested snake's, and again and again and again and again plunged down upon the child, and she kissed his little body from head to foot with soft violence, and murmured, through her streaming tears, "My child! my darling! my angel! oh, my poor boy! my child! my child!"

I will ask my female readers of every degree to tell their brothers and husbands all the young noble did: how she sat on the floor, and had her child on her bosom; how she smiled over it through her tears; how she purred over it; how she, the stately one, lisped and prattled over it; and how life came pouring into her heart from it.

Before she had had it in her arms five minutes, her pale cheek was as red as a rose, and her eyes brighter than diamonds.

"Bless you, Rose! bless you! bless you! in one moment you have made me forget all I ever suffered in my life."

"There is a cold draught," cried she presently, with maternal anxiety; "close the panel, Rose."

"No, dear; or I could not call to Jacintha, or she to me; but I will shift the screen round between him and the draught. There, now, come to his aunt—a darling!"

Then Rose sat on the floor too, and Josephine put her boy on aunt's lap, and took a distant view of him. But she could not bear so vast a separation long. She must have him to her bosom again.

Presently my lord, finding himself hugged, opened his eyes, and, as a natural consequence, his mouth.

"Oh, that will never do," cried Rose, and they put him back in the cradle with all expedition, and began to rock it. Young master was not to be altogether appeased even by that. So Rose began singing an old-fashioned Breton chant or lullaby.

Josephine sang with her, and, singing, watched with a smile her boy drop off by degrees to sleep under the gentle motion and the lulling song. They sang and rocked till the lids came creeping down, and hid the great blue eyes; but still they sang and rocked, lulling the boy, and gladdening their own hearts; for the quaint old Breton ditty was tunable as the lark that carols over the green wheat in April; and the words so simple and motherly, that a nation had taken them to heart. Such songs bind ages together and make the lofty and the low akin by the great ties of music and the heart. Many a Breton peasant's bosom in the olden time had gushed over her sleeping boy as the young dame's of Beaurepaire gushed now—in this quaint, tuneful lullaby.

Now, as they kneeled over the cradle, one on each side, and rocked it, and sang that ancient chant, Josephine, who was opposite the screen, happening to raise her eyes, saw a strange thing.

There was the face of a man set close against the side of the screen, and peeping and peering out of the gloom. The light of her candle fell full on this face; it glared at her, set pale, wonder-struck, and vivid in the surrounding gloom.

Horror! It was her husband's face.

At first she was quite stupefied, and looked at it with soul and senses benumbed. Then she trembled, and put her hand to her eyes; for she thought it a phantom or a delusion of the mind. No: there it glared still. Then she trembled violently, and held out her left hand, the fingers working convulsively, to Rose, who was still singing.

But, at the same moment, the mouth of this face suddenly opened in a long-drawn breath. At this, Josephine uttered a violent shriek, and sprang to her feet, with her right hand quivering and pointing at that pale face set in the dark.

Rose started up, and, wheeling her head round, saw Raynal's gloomy face looking over her shoulder. She fell screaming upon her knees, and, almost out of her senses, began to pray wildly and piteously for mercy.

Josephine uttered one more cry, but this was the faint cry of nature, sinking under the shock of terror. She swooned dead away, and fell senseless on the floor ere Raynal could debarrass himself of the screen, and get to her.

This, then, was the scene that met Edouard's eyes. His affianced bride on her knees, white as a ghost, trembling, and screaming, rather than crying, for mercy. And Raynal standing over his wife, showing by the working of his iron features that he doubted whether she was worthy he should raise her.

One would have thought nothing could add to the terror of this scene. Yet it was added to. The baroness rang her bell violently in the room below. She had heard Josephine's scream and fall.

At the ringing of this shrill bell Rose shuddered like a maniac, and grovelled on her knees to Raynal, and seized his very knees and implored him to show some pity.

"O sir! kill us! we are culpable"—

Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! pealed the baroness's bell again.

"But do not tell our mother. Oh, if you are a man! do not! do not! Show us some pity. We are but women. Mercy! mercy! mercy!"

"Speak out then," groaned Raynal. "What does this mean? Why has my wife swooned at sight of me?—whose is this child?"

"Whose?" stammered Rose. Till he said that, she never thought there COULD be a doubt whose child.

Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring!

"Oh, my God!" cried the poor girl, and her scared eyes glanced every way like some wild creature looking for a hole, however small, to escape by.

Edouard, seeing her hesitation, came down on her other side. "Whose is the child, Rose?" said he sternly.

"You, too? Why were we born? mercy! oh! pray let me go to my sister."

Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! went the terrible bell.

The men were excited to fury by Rose's hesitation; they each seized an arm, and tore her screaming with fear at their violence, from her knees up to her feet between them with a single gesture.

"Whose is the child?"

"You hurt me!" said she bitterly to Edouard, and she left crying and was terribly calm and sullen all in a moment.

"Whose is the child?" roared Edouard and Raynal, in one raging breath. "Whose is the child?"

"It is mine."



CHAPTER XX.

These were not words; they were electric shocks.

The two arms that gripped Rose's arms were paralyzed, and dropped off them; and there was silence.

Then first the thought of all she had done with those three words began to rise and grow and surge over her. She stood, her eyes turned downwards, yet inwards, and dilating with horror.

Silence.

Now a mist began to spread over her eyes, and in it she saw indistinctly the figure of Raynal darting to her sister's side, and raising her head.

She dared not look round on the other side. She heard feet stagger on the floor. She heard a groan, too; but not a word.

Horrible silence.

With nerves strung to frenzy, and quivering ears, that magnified every sound, she waited for a reproach, a curse; either would have been some little relief. But no! a silence far more terrible.

Then a step wavered across the room. Her soul was in her ear. She could hear and feel the step totter, and it shook her as it went. All sounds were trebled to her. Then it struck on the stone step of the staircase, not like a step, but a knell; another step, another and another; down to the very bottom. Each slow step made her head ring and her heart freeze.

At last she heard no more. Then a scream of anguish and recall rose to her lips. She fought it down, for Josephine and Raynal. Edouard was gone. She had but her sister now, the sister she loved better than herself; the sister to save whose life and honor she had this moment sacrificed her own, and all a woman lives for.

She turned, with a wild cry of love and pity, to that sister's side to help her; and when she kneeled down beside her, an iron arm was promptly thrust out between the beloved one and her.

"This is my care, madame," said Raynal, coldly.

There was no mistaking his manner. The stained one was not to touch his wife.

She looked at him in piteous amazement at his ingratitude. "It is well," said she. "It is just. I deserve this from you."

She said no more, but drooped gently down beside the cradle, and hid her forehead in the clothes beside the child that had brought all this woe, and sobbed bitterly.

Then honest Raynal began to be sorry for her, in spite of himself. But there was no time for this. Josephine stirred; and, at the same moment, a violent knocking came at the door of the apartment, and the new servant's voice, crying, "Ladies, for Heaven's sake, what is the matter? The baroness heard a fall—she is getting up—she will be here. What shall I tell her is the matter?"

Raynal was going to answer, but Rose, who had started up at the knocking, put her hand in a moment right before his mouth, and ran to the door. "There is nothing the matter; tell mamma I am coming down to her directly." She flew back to Raynal in an excitement little short of frenzy. "Help me carry her into her own room," cried she imperiously. Raynal obeyed by instinct; for the fiery girl spoke like a general, giving the word of command, with the enemy in front. He carried the true culprit in his arms, and laid her gently on her bed.

"Now put IT out of sight—take this, quick, man! quick!" cried Rose.

Raynal went to the cradle. "Ah! my poor girl," said he, as he lifted it in his arms, "this is a sorry business; to have to hide your own child from your own mother!"

"Colonel Raynal," said Rose, "do not insult a poor, despairing girl. C'est lache."

"I am silent, young woman," said Raynal, sternly. "What is to be done?"

"Take it down the steps, and give it to Jacintha. Stay, here is a candle; I go to tell mamma you are come; and, Colonel Raynal, I never injured YOU: if you tell my mother you will stab her to the heart, and me, and may the curse of cowards light on you!—may"—

"Enough!" said Raynal, sternly. "Do you take me for a babbling girl? I love your mother better than you do, or this brat of yours would not be here. I shall not bring her gray hairs down with sorrow to the grave. I shall speak of this villany to but one person; and to him I shall talk with this, and not with the idle tongue." And he tapped his sword-hilt with a sombre look of terrible significance.

He carried out the cradle. The child slept sweetly through it all.

Rose darted into Josephine's room, took the key from the inside to the outside, locked the door, put the key in her pocket, and ran down to her mother's room; her knees trembled under her as she went.

Meantime, Jacintha, sleeping tranquilly, suddenly felt her throat griped, and heard a loud voice ring in her ear; then she was lifted, and wrenched, and dropped. She found herself lying clear of the steps in the moonlight; her head was where her feet had been, and her candle out.

She uttered shriek upon shriek, and was too frightened to get up. She thought it was supernatural; some old De Beaurepaire had served her thus for sleeping on her post. A struggle took place between her fidelity and her superstitious fears. Fidelity conquered. Quaking in every limb, she groped up the staircase for her candle.

It was gone.

Then a still more sickening fear came over her.

What if this was no spirit's work, but a human arm—a strong one—some man's arm?

Her first impulse was to dart up the stairs, and make sure that no calamity had befallen through her mistimed drowsiness. But, when she came to try, her dread of the supernatural revived. She could not venture without a light up those stairs, thronged perhaps with angry spirits. She ran to the kitchen. She found the tinderbox, and with trembling hands struck a light. She came back shading it with her shaky hands; and, committing her soul to the care of Heaven, she crept quaking up the stairs. Then she heard voices above, and that restored her more; she mounted more steadily. Presently she stopped, for a heavy step was coming down. It did not sound like a woman's step. It came further down; she turned to fly.

"Jacintha!" said a deep voice, that in this stone cylinder rang like thunder from a tomb.

"Oh! saints and angels save me!" yelled Jacintha; and fell on her knees, and hid her head for security; and down went her candlestick clattering on the stone.

"Don't be a fool!" said the iron voice. "Get up and take this."

She raised her head by slow degrees, shuddering. A man was holding out a cradle to her; the candle he carried lighted up his face; it was Colonel Raynal.

She stared at him stupidly, but never moved from her knees, and the candle began to shake violently in her hand, as she herself trembled from head to foot.

Then Raynal concluded she was in the plot; but, scorning to reproach a servant, he merely said, "Well, what do you kneel there for, gaping at me like that? Take this, I tell you, and carry it out of the house."

He shoved the cradle roughly down into her hands, then turned on his heel without a word.

Jacintha collapsed on the stairs, and the cradle beside her, for all the power was driven out of her body; she could hardly support her own weight, much less the cradle.

She rocked herself, and moaned out, "Oh, what's this? oh, what's this?"

A cold perspiration came over her whole frame.

"What could this mean? What on earth had happened?"

She took up the candle, for it was lying burning and guttering on the stairs; scraped up the grease with the snuffers, and by force of habit tried to polish it clean with a bit of paper that shook between her fingers; she did not know what she was doing. When she recovered her wits, she took the child out of the cradle, and wrapped it carefully in her shawl; then went slowly down the stairs; and holding him close to her bosom, with a furtive eye, and brain confused, and a heart like lead, stole away to the tenantless cottage, where Madame Jouvenel awaited her.

Meantime, Rose, with quaking heart, had encountered the baroness. She found her pale and agitated, and her first question was, "What is the matter? what have you been all doing over my head?"

"Darling mother," replied Rose, evasively, "something has happened that will rejoice your heart. Somebody has come home."

"My son? eh, no! impossible! We cannot be so happy."

"He will be with you directly."

The old lady now trembled with joyful agitation.

"In five minutes I will bring him to you. Shall you be dressed? I will ring for the girl to help you."

"But, Rose, the scream, and that terrible fall. Ah! where is Josephine?"

"Can't you guess, mamma? Oh, the fall was only the screen; they stumbled over it in the dark."

"They! who?"

"Colonel Raynal, and—and Edouard. I will tell you, mamma, but don't be angry, or even mention it; they wanted to surprise us. They saw a light burning, and they crept on tiptoe up to the tapestried room, where Josephine and I were, and they did give us a great fright."

"What madness!" cried the baroness, angrily; "and in Josephine's weak state! Such a surprise might have driven her into a fit."

"Yes, it was foolish, but let it pass, mamma. Don't speak of it, for he is so sorry about it."

Then Rose slipped out, ordered a fire in the salon, and not in the tapestried room, and the next minute was at her sister's door. There she found Raynal knocking, and asking Josephine how she was.

"Pray leave her to me a moment," said she. "I will bring her down to you. Mamma is waiting for you in the salon."

Raynal went down. Rose unlocked the bedroom-door, went in, and, to her horror, found Josephine lying on the floor. She dashed water in her face, and applied every remedy; and at last she came back to life, and its terrors.

"Save me, Rose! save me—he is coming to kill me—I heard him at the door," and she clung trembling piteously to Rose.

Then Rose, seeing her terror, was almost glad at the suicidal falsehood she had told. She comforted and encouraged Josephine and—deceived her. (This was the climax.)

"All is well, my poor coward," she cried; "your fears are all imaginary; another has owned the child, and the story is believed."

"Another! impossible! He would not believe it."

"He does believe it—he shall believe it."

Rose then, feeling by no means sure that Josephine, terrified as she was, would consent to let her sister come to shame to screen her, told her boldly that Jacintha had owned herself the mother of the child, and that Raynal's only feeling towards HER was pity, and regret at having so foolishly frightened her, weakened as she was by illness. "I told him you had been ill, dear. But how came you on the ground?"

"I had come to myself; I was on my knees praying. He tapped. I heard his voice. I remember no more. I must have fainted again directly."

Rose had hard work to make her believe that her guilt, as she called it, was not known; and even then she could not prevail on her to come down-stairs, until she said, "If you don't, he will come to you." On that Josephine consented eagerly, and with trembling fingers began to adjust her hair and her dress for the interview.

All this terrible night Rose fought for her sister. She took her down-stairs to the salon; she put her on the sofa; she sat by her and pressed her hand constantly to give her courage. She told the story of the surprise her own way, before the whole party, including the doctor, to prevent Raynal from being called on to tell it his way. She laughed at Josephine's absurdity, but excused it on account of her feeble health. In short, she threw more and more dust in all their eyes.

But by the time when the rising sun came faintly in and lighted the haggard party, where the deceived were happy, the deceivers wretched, the supernatural strength this young girl had shown was almost exhausted. She felt an hysterical impulse to scream and weep: each minute it became more and more ungovernable. Then came an unexpected turn. Raynal after a long and tiring talk with his mother, as he called her, looked at his watch, and in a characteristic way coolly announced his immediate departure, this being the first hint he had given them that he was not come back for good.

The baroness was thunderstruck.

Rose and Josephine pressed one another's hands, and had much ado not to utter a loud cry of joy.

Raynal explained that he was the bearer of despatches. "I must be off: not an hour to lose. Don't fret, mother, I shall soon be back again, if I am not knocked on the head."

Raynal took leave of them all. When it came to Rose's turn, he drew her aside and whispered into her ear, "Who is the man?"

She started, and seemed dumfounded.

"Tell me, or I ask my wife."

"She has promised me not to betray me: I made her swear. Spare me now, brother; I will tell you all when you come back."

"That is a bargain: now hear ME swear: he shall marry you, or he shall die by my hand."

He confirmed this by a tremendous oath.

Rose shuddered, but said nothing, only she thought to herself, "I am forewarned. Never shall you know who is the father of that child."

He was no sooner gone than the baroness insisted on knowing what this private communication between him and Rose was about.

"Oh," said Rose, "he was only telling me to keep up your courage and Josephine's till he comes back."

This was the last lie the poor entangled wretch had to tell that morning. The next minute the sisters, exhausted by their terrible struggle, went feebly, with downcast eyes, along the corridor and up the staircase to Josephine's room.

They went hand in hand. They sank down, dressed as they were, on Josephine's bed, and clung to one another and trembled together, till their exhausted natures sank into uneasy slumbers, from which each in turn would wake ever and anon with a convulsive start, and clasp her sister tighter to her breast.

Theirs was a marvellous love. Even a course of deceit had not yet prevailed to separate or chill their sister bosoms. But still in this deep and wonderful love there were degrees: one went a shade deeper than the other now—ay, since last night. Which? why, she who had sacrificed herself for the other, and dared not tell her, lest the sacrifice should be refused.

It was the gray of the morning, and foggy, when Raynal, after taking leave, went to the stable for his horse. At the stable-door he came upon a man sitting doubled up on the very stones of the yard, with his head on his knees. The figure lifted his head, and showed him the face of Edouard Riviere, white and ghastly: his hair lank with the mist, his teeth chattering with cold and misery. The poor wretch had walked frantically all night round and round the chateau, waiting till Raynal should come out. He told him so.

"But why didn't you?—Ah! I see. No! you could not go into the house after that. My poor fellow, there is but one thing for you to do. Turn your back on her, and forget she ever lived; she is dead to you."

"There is something to be done besides that," said Edouard, gloomily.

"What?"

"Vengeance."

"That is my affair, young man. When I come back from the Rhine, she will tell me who her seducer is. She has promised."

"And don't you see through that?" said Edouard, gnashing his teeth; "that is only to gain time: she will never tell you. She is young in years, but old in treachery."

He groaned and was silent a moment, then laying his hand on Raynal's arm said grimly, "Thank Heaven, we don't depend on her for information! I know the villain."

Raynal's eyes flashed: "Ah! then tell me this moment."

"It is that scoundrel Dujardin."

"Dujardin! What do you mean?"

"I mean that, while you were fighting for France, your house was turned into a hospital for wounded soldiers."

"And pray, sir, to what more honorable use could they put it?"

"Well, this Dujardin was housed by you, was nursed by your wife and all the family; and in return has seduced your sister, my affianced."

"I can hardly believe that. Camille Dujardin was always a man of honor, and a good soldier."

"Colonel, there has been no man near the place but this Dujardin. I tell you it is he. Don't make me tear my bleeding heart out: must I tell you how often I caught them together, how I suspected, and how she gulled me? blind fool that I was, to believe a woman's words before my own eyes. I swear to you he is the villain; the only question is, which of us two is to kill him."

"Where is the man?"

"In the army of the Rhine."

"Ah! all the better."

"Covered with glory and honor. Curse him! oh, curse him! curse him!"

"I am in luck. I am going to the Rhine."

"I know it. That is why I waited here all through this night of misery. Yes, you are in luck. But you will send me a line when you have killed him; will you not? Then I shall know joy again. Should he escape you, he shall not escape me."

"Young man," said Raynal, with dignity, "this rage is unmanly. Besides, we have not heard his side of the story. He is a good soldier; perhaps he is not all to blame: or perhaps passion has betrayed him into a sin that his conscience and honor disapprove: if so, he must not die. You think only of your wrong: it is natural: but I am the girl's brother; guardian of her honor and my own. His life is precious as gold. I shall make him marry her."

"What! reward him for his villany?" cried Edouard, frantically.

"A mighty reward," replied Raynal, with a sneer.

"You leave one thing out of the calculation, monsieur," said Edouard, trembling with anger, "that I will kill your brother-in-law at the altar, before her eyes."

"YOU leave one thing out of the calculation: that you will first have to cross swords, at the altar, with me."

"So be it. I will not draw on my old commandant. I could not; but be sure I will catch him and her alone some day, and the bride shall be a widow in her honeymoon."

"As you please," said Raynal, coolly. "That is all fair, as you have been wronged. I shall make her an honest wife, and then you may make her an honest widow. (This is what they call LOVE, and sneer at me for keeping clear of it.) But neither he nor you shall keep MY SISTER what she is now, a ——," and he used a word out of camp.

Edouard winced and groaned. "Oh! don't call her by such a name. There is some mystery. She loved me once. There must have been some strange seduction."

"Now you deceive yourself," said Raynal. "I never saw a girl that could take her own part better than she can; she is not like her sister at all in character. Not that I excuse him; it was a dishonorable act, an ungrateful act to my wife and my mother."

"And to you."

"Now listen to me: in four days I shall stand before him. I shall not go into a pet like you; I am in earnest. I shall just say to him, 'Dujardin, I know all!' Then if he is guilty his face will show it directly. Then I shall say, 'Comrade, you must marry her whom you have dishonored.'"

"He will not. He is a libertine, a rascal."

"You are speaking of a man you don't know. He WILL marry her and repair the wrong he has done."

"Suppose he refuses?"

"Why should he refuse? The girl is not ugly nor old, and if she has done a folly, he was her partner in it."

"But SUPPOSE he refuses?"

Raynal ground his teeth. "Refuse? If he does, I'll run my sword through his carcass then and there, and the hussy shall go into a convent."



CHAPTER XXI.

The French army lay before a fortified place near the Rhine, which we will call Philipsburg.

This army knew Bonaparte by report only; it was commanded by generals of the old school.

Philipsburg was defended on three sides by the nature of the ground; but on the side that faced the French line of march there was only a zigzag wall, pierced, and a low tower or two at each of the salient angles.

There were evidences of a tardy attempt to improve the defences. In particular there was a large round bastion, about three times the height of the wall; but the masonry was new, and the very embrasures were not yet cut.

Young blood was for assaulting these equivocal fortifications at the end of the day's march that brought the French advanced guard in sight of the place; but the old generals would not hear of it; the soldiers' lives must not be flung away assaulting a place that could be reduced in twenty-one days with mathematical certainty. For at this epoch a siege was looked on as a process with a certain result, the only problem was in how many days would the place be taken; and even this they used to settle to a day or two on paper by arithmetic; so many feet of wall, and so many guns on the one side; so many guns, so many men, and such and such a soil to cut the trenches in on the other: result, two figures varying from fourteen to forty. These two figures represented the duration of the siege.

For all that, siege arithmetic, right in general, has often been terribly disturbed by one little incident, that occurs from time to time; viz., Genius INside. And, indeed, this is one of the sins of genius; it goes and puts out calculations that have stood the brunt of years. Archimedes and Todleben were, no doubt, clever men in their way and good citizens, yet one characteristic of delicate men's minds they lacked—veneration; they showed a sad disrespect for the wisdom of the ancients, deranged the calculations which so much learning and patient thought had hallowed, disturbed the minds of white-haired veterans, took sieges out of the grasp of science, and plunged them back into the field of wild conjecture.

Our generals then sat down at fourteen hundred yards' distance, and planned the trenches artistically, and directed them to be cut at artful angles, and so creep nearer and nearer the devoted town. Then the Prussians, whose hearts had been in their shoes at first sight of the French shakos, plucked up, and turned not the garrison only but the population of the town into engineers and masons. Their fortifications grew almost as fast as the French trenches.

The first day of the siege, a young but distinguished brigadier in the French army rode to the quarters of General Raimbaut, who commanded his division, and was his personal friend, and respectfully but firmly entreated the general to represent to the commander-in-chief the propriety of assaulting that new bastion before it should become dangerous. "My brigade shall carry it in fifteen minutes, general," said he.

"What! cross all that open under fire? One-half your brigade would never reach the bastion."

"But the other half would take it."

"That is not so certain."

General Raimbaut refused to forward the young colonel's proposal to headquarters. "I will not subject you to TWO refusals in one matter," said he, kindly.

The young colonel lingered. He said, respectfully, "One question, general, when that bastion cuts its teeth will it be any easier to take than now?"

"Certainly; it will always be easier to take it from the sap than to cross the open under fire to it, and take it. Come, colonel, to your trenches; and if your friend should cut its teeth, you shall have a battery in your attack that will set its teeth on edge. Ha! ha!"

The young colonel did not echo his chief's humor; he saluted gravely, and returned to the trenches.

The next morning three fresh tiers of embrasures grinned one above another at the besiegers. The besieged had been up all night, and not idle. In half these apertures black muzzles showed themselves.

The bastion had cut its front teeth.

Thirteenth day of the siege.

The trenches were within four hundred yards of the enemy's guns, and it was hot work in them. The enemy had three tiers of guns in the round bastion, and on the top they had got a long 48-pounder, which they worked with a swivel joint, or the like, and threw a great roaring shot into any part of the French lines.

As to the commander-in-chief and his generals, they were dotted about a long way in the rear, and no shot came as far as them; but in the trenches the men began now to fall fast, especially on the left attack, which faced the round bastion. Our young colonel had got his heavy battery, and every now and then he would divert the general efforts of the bastion, and compel it to concentrate its attention on him, by pounding away at it till it was all in sore places. But he meant it worse mischief than that. Still, as heretofore, regarding it as the key to Philipsburg, he had got a large force of engineers at work driving a mine towards it, and to this he trusted more than to breaching it; for the bigger holes he made in it by day were all stopped at night by the townspeople.

This colonel was not a favorite in the division to which his brigade belonged. He was a good soldier, but a dull companion. He was also accused of hauteur and of an unsoldierly reserve with his brother officers.

Some loose-tongued ones even called him a milk-sop, because he was constantly seen conversing with the priest—he who had nothing to say to an honest soldier.

Others said, "No, hang it, he is not a milk-sop: he is a tried soldier: he is a sulky beggar all the same." Those under his immediate command were divided in opinion about him. There was something about him they could not understand. Why was his sallow face so stern, so sad? and why with all that was his voice so gentle? somehow the few words that did fall from his mouth were prized. One old soldier used to say, "I would rather have a word from our brigadier than from the commander-in-chief." Others thought he must at some part of his career have pillaged a church, taken the altar-piece, and sold it to a picture-dealer in Paris, or whipped the earrings out of the Madonna's ears, or admitted the female enemy to quarter upon ungenerous conditions: this, or some such crime to which we poor soldiers are liable: and now was committing the mistake of remording himself about it. "Always alongside the chaplain, you see!"

This cold and silent man had won the heart of the most talkative sergeant in the French army. Sergeant La Croix protested with many oaths that all the best generals of the day had commanded him in turn, and that his present colonel was the first that had succeeded in inspiring him with unlimited confidence. "He knows every point of war—this one," said La Croix, "I heard him beg and pray for leave to storm this thundering bastion before it was armed: but no, the old muffs would be wiser than our colonel. So now here we are kept at bay by a place that Julius Caesar and Cannibal wouldn't have made two bites at apiece; no more would I if I was the old boy out there behind the hill." In such terms do sergeants denote commanders-in-chief—at a distance. A voluble sergeant has more influence with the men than the minister of war is perhaps aware: on the whole, the 24th brigade would have followed its gloomy colonel to grim death and a foot farther. One thing gave these men a touch of superstitious reverence for their commander. He seemed to them free from physical weakness. He never SAT DOWN to dinner, and seemed never to sleep. At no hour of the day or night were the sentries safe from his visits.

Very annoying. But, after awhile, it led to keen watchfulness: the more so that the sad and gloomy colonel showed by his manner he appreciated it. Indeed, one night he even opened his marble jaws, and told Sergeant La Croix that a watchful sentry was an important soldier, not to his brigade only, but to the whole army. Judge whether the maxim and the implied encomium did not circulate next morning, with additions.

Sixteenth day of the siege. The round bastion opened fire at eight o'clock, not on the opposing battery, but on the right of the French attack. Its advanced position enabled a portion of its guns to rake these trenches slant-wise: and depressing its guns it made the round shot strike the ground first and ricochet over.

On this our colonel opened on them with all his guns: one of these he served himself. Among his other warlike accomplishments, he was a wonderful shot with a cannon. He showed them capital practice this morning: drove two embrasures into one, and knocked about a ton of masonry off the parapet. Then taking advantage of this, he served two of his guns with grape, and swept the enemy off the top of the bastion, and kept it clear. He made it so hot they could not work the upper guns. Then they turned the other two tiers all upon him, and at it both sides went ding, dong, till the guns were too hot to be worked. So then Sergeant La Croix popped his head up from the battery, and showed the enemy a great white plate. This was meant to convey to them an invitation to dine with the French army: the other side of the table of course.

To the credit of Prussian intelligence be it recorded, that this pantomimic hint was at once taken and both sides went to dinner.

The fighting colonel, however, remained in the battery, and kept a detachment of his gunners employed cooling the guns and repairing the touch-holes. He ordered his two cutlets and his glass of water into the battery.

Meantime, the enemy fired a single gun at long intervals, as much as to say, "We had the last word."

Let trenches be cut ever so artfully, there will be a little space exposed here and there at the angles. These spaces the men are ordered to avoid, or whip quickly across them into cover.

Now the enemy had just got the range of one of these places with their solitary gun, and had already dropped a couple of shot right on to it. A camp follower with a tray, two cutlets, and a glass of water, came to this open space just as a puff of white smoke burst from the bastion. Instead of instantly seeking shelter till the shot had struck, he, in his inexperience, thought the shot must have struck, and all danger be over. He stayed there mooning instead of pelting under cover: the shot (eighteen-pound) struck him right on the breast, knocked him into spilikins, and sent the mutton cutlets flying.

The human fragments lay quiet, ten yards off. But a soldier that was eating his dinner kicked it over, and jumped up at the side of "Death's Alley" (as it was christened next minute), and danced and yelled with pain.

"Haw! haw! haw!" roared a soldier from the other side of the alley.

"What is that?" cried Sergeant La Croix. "What do you laugh at, Private Cadel?" said he sternly, for, though he was too far in the trench to see, he had heard that horrible sound a soldier knows from every other, the "thud" of a round shot striking man or horse.

"Sergeant," said Cadel, respectfully, "I laugh to see Private Dard, that got the wind of the shot, dance and sing, when the man that got the shot itself does not say a word."

"The wind of the shot, you rascal!" roared Private Dard: "look here!" and he showed the blood running down his face.

The shot had actually driven a splinter of bone out of the sutler into Dard's temple.

"I am the unluckiest fellow in the army," remonstrated Dard: and he stamped in a circle.

"Seems to me you are only the second unluckiest this time," said a young soldier with his mouth full; and, with a certain dry humor, he pointed vaguely over his shoulder with the fork towards the corpse.

The trenches laughed and assented.

This want of sympathy and justice irritated Dard. "You cursed fools!" cried he. "He is gone where we must all go—without any trouble. But look at me. I am always getting barked. Dogs of Prussians! they pick me out among a thousand. I shall have a headache all the afternoon, you see else."

Some of our heads would never have ached again: but Dard had a good thick skull.

Dard pulled out his spilikin savagely.

"I'll wrap it up in paper for Jacintha," said he. "Then that will learn her what a poor soldier has to go through."

Even this consolation was denied Private Dard.

Corporal Coriolanus Gand, a bit of an infidel from Lyons, who sometimes amused himself with the Breton's superstition, told him with a grave face, that the splinter belonged not to him, but to the sutler, and, though so small, was doubtless a necessary part of his frame.

"If you keep that, it will be a bone of contention between you two," said he; "especially at midnight. HE WILL BE ALWAYS COMING BACK TO YOU FOR IT."

"There, take it away!" said the Breton hastily, "and bury it with the poor fellow."

Sergeant La Croix presented himself before the colonel with a rueful face and saluted him and said, "Colonel, I beg a thousand pardons; your dinner has been spilt—a shot from the bastion."

"No matter," said the colonel. "Give me a piece of bread instead."

La Croix went for it himself, and on his return found Cadel sitting on one side of Death's Alley, and Dard with his head bound up on the other. They had got a bottle which each put up in turn wherever he fancied the next round shot would strike, and they were betting their afternoon rations which would get the Prussians to hit the bottle first.

La Croix pulled both their ears playfully.

"Time is up for playing marbles," said he. "Be off, and play at duty," and he bundled them into the battery.

It was an hour past midnight: a cloudy night. The moon was up, but seen only by fitful gleams. A calm, peaceful silence reigned.

Dard was sentinel in the battery.

An officer going his rounds found the said sentinel flat instead of vertical. He stirred him with his scabbard, and up jumped Dard.

"It's all right, sergeant. O Lord! it's the colonel. I wasn't asleep, colonel."

"I have not accused you. But you will explain what you were doing."

"Colonel," said Dard, all in a flutter, "I was taking a squint at them, because I saw something. The beggars are building a wall, now."

"Where?"

"Between us and the bastion."

"Show me."

"I can't, colonel; the moon has gone in; but I did see it."

"How long was it?"

"About a hundred yards."

"How high?"

"Colonel, it was ten feet high if it was an inch."

"Have you good sight?"

"La! colonel, wasn't I a bit of a poacher before I took to the bayonet?"

"Good! Now reflect. If you persist in this statement, I turn out the brigade on your information."

"I'll stand the fire of a corporal's guard at break of day if I make a mistake now," said Dard.

The colonel glided away, called his captain and first lieutenants, and said two words in each ear, that made them spring off their backs.

Dard, marching to an fro, musket on shoulder, found himself suddenly surrounded by grim, silent, but deadly eager soldiers, that came pouring like bees into the open space behind the battery. The officers came round the colonel.

"Attend to two things," said he to the captains. "Don't fire till they are within ten yards: and don't follow them unless I lead you."

The men were then told off by companies, some to the battery, some to the trenches, some were kept on each side Death's Alley, ready for a rush.

They were not all of them in position, when those behind the parapet saw, as it were, something deepen the gloom of night, some fourscore yards to the front: it was like a line of black ink suddenly drawn upon a sheet covered with Indian ink.

It seems quite stationary. The novices wondered what it was. The veterans muttered—"Three deep."

Though it looked stationary, it got blacker and blacker. The soldiers of the 24th brigade griped their muskets hard, and set their teeth, and the sergeants had much ado to keep them quiet.

All of a sudden, a loud yell on the right of the brigade, two or three single shots from the trenches in that direction, followed by a volley, the cries of wounded men, and the fierce hurrahs of an attacking party.

Our colonel knew too well those sounds: the next parallel had been surprised, and the Prussian bayonet was now silently at work.

Disguise was now impossible. At the first shot, a guttural voice in front of Dujardin's men was heard to give a word of command. There was a sharp rattle and in a moment the thick black line was tipped with glittering steel.

A roar and a rush, and the Prussian line three deep came furiously like a huge steel-pointed wave, at the French lines. A tremendous wave of fire rushed out to meet that wave of steel: a crash of two hundred muskets, and all was still. Then you could see through the black steel-tipped line in a hundred frightful gaps, and the ground sparkled with bayonets and the air rang with the cries of the wounded.

A tremendous cheer from the brigade, and the colonel charged at the head of his column, out by Death's Alley.

The broken wall was melting away into the night. The colonel wheeled his men to the right: one company, led by the impetuous young Captain Jullien, followed the flying enemy.

The other attack had been only too successful. They shot the sentries, and bayoneted many of the soldiers in their tents: others escaped by running to the rear, and some into the next parallel.

Several, half dressed, snatched up their muskets, killed one Prussian, and fell riddled like sieves.

A gallant officer got a company together into the place of arms and formed in line.

Half the Prussian force went at them, the rest swept the trenches: the French company delivered a deadly volley, and the next moment clash the two forces crossed bayonets, and a silent deadly stabbing match was played: the final result of which was inevitable. The Prussians were five to one. The gallant officer and the poor fellows who did their duty so stoutly, had no thought left but to die hard, when suddenly a roaring cheer seemed to come from the rear rank of the enemy. "France! France!" Half the 24th brigade came leaping and swarming over the trenches in the Prussian rear. The Prussians wavered. "France!" cried the little party that were being overpowered, and charged in their turn with such fury that in two seconds the two French corps went through the enemy's centre like paper, and their very bayonets clashed together in more than one Prussian body.

Broken thus in two fragments the Prussian corps ceased to exist as a military force. The men fled each his own way back to the fort, and many flung away their muskets, for French soldiers were swarming in from all quarters. At this moment, bang! bang! bang! from the bastion.

"They are firing on my brigade," said our colonel. "Who has led his company there against my orders? Captain Neville, into the battery, and fire twenty rounds at the bastion! Aim at the flashes from their middle tier."

"Yes, colonel."

The battery opened with all its guns on the bastion. The right attack followed suit. The town answered, and a furious cannonade roared and blazed all down both lines till daybreak. Hell seemed broken loose.

Captain Jullien had followed the flying foe: but could not come up with them: and, as the enemy had prepared for every contingency, the fatal bastion, after first throwing a rocket or two to discover their position, poured showers of grape into them, killed many, and would have killed more but that Captain Neville and his gunners happened by mere accident to dismount one gun and to kill a couple of gunners at the others. This gave the remains of the company time to disperse and run back. When the men were mustered, Captain Jullien and twenty-five of his company did not answer to their names. At daybreak they were visible from the trenches lying all by themselves within eighty yards of the bastion.

A flag of truce came from the fort: the dead were removed on both sides and buried. Some Prussian officers strolled into the French lines. Civilities and cigars exchanged: "Bon jour," "Gooten daeg:" then at it again, ding dong all down the line blazing and roaring.

At twelve o'clock the besieged had got a man on horseback, on top of a hill, with colored flags in his hand, making signals.

"What are you up to now?" inquired Dard.

"You will see," said La Croix, affecting mystery; he knew no more than the other.

Presently off went Long Tom on the top of the bastion, and the shot came roaring over the heads of the speakers.

The flags were changed, and off went Long Tom again at an elevation.

Ten seconds had scarcely elapsed when a tremendous explosion took place on the French right. Long Tom was throwing red-hot shot; one had fallen on a powder wagon, and blown it to pieces, and killed two poor fellows and a horse, and turned an artillery man at some distance into a seeming nigger, but did him no great harm; only took him three days to get the powder out of his clothes with pipe clay, and off his face with raw potato-peel.

When the tumbril exploded, the Prussians could be heard to cheer, and they turned to and fired every iron spout they owned. Long Tom worked all day.

They got into a corner where the guns of the battery could not hit them or him, and there was his long muzzle looking towards the sky, and sending half a hundredweight of iron up into the clouds, and plunging down a mile off into the French lines.

And, at every shot, the man on horseback made signals to let the gunners know where the shot fell.

At last, about four in the afternoon, they threw a forty-eight-pound shot slap into the commander-in-chief's tent, a mile and a half behind trenches.

Down comes a glittering aide-de-camp as hard as he can gallop.

"Colonel Dujardin, what are you about, sir? YOUR BASTION has thrown a round shot into the commander-in-chief's tent."

The colonel did not appear so staggered as the aide-de-camp expected.

"Ah, indeed!" said he quietly. "I observed they were trying distances."

"Must not happen again, colonel. You must drive them from the gun."

"How?"

"Why, where is the difficulty?"

"If you will do me the honor to step into the battery, I will show you," said the colonel.

"If you please," said the aide-de-camp stiffly.

Colonel Dujardin took him to the parapet, and began, in a calm, painstaking way, to show him how and why none of his guns could be brought to bear upon Long Tom.

In the middle of the explanation a melodious sound was heard in the air above them, like a swarm of Brobdingnag bees.

"What is that?" inquired the aide-de-camp.

"What? I see nothing."

"That humming noise."

"Oh, that? Prussian bullets. Ah, by-the-by, it is a compliment to your uniform, monsieur; they take you for some one of importance. Well, as I was observing"—

"Your explanation is sufficient, colonel; let us get out of this. Ha, ha! you are a cool hand, colonel, I must say. But your battery is a warm place enough: I shall report it so at headquarters."

The grim colonel relaxed.

"Captain," said he politely, "you shall not have ridden to my post in vain. Will you lend me your horse for ten minutes?"

"Certainly; and I will inspect your trenches meantime."

"Do so; oblige me by avoiding that angle; it is exposed, and the enemy have got the range to an inch."

Colonel Dujardin slipped into his quarters; off with his half-dress jacket and his dirty boots, and presently out he came full fig, glittering brighter than the other, with one French and two foreign orders shining on his breast, mounted the aide-de-camp's horse, and away full pelt.

Admitted, after some delay, into the generalissimo's tent, Dujardin found the old gentleman surrounded by his staff and wroth: nor was the danger to which he had been exposed his sole cause of ire.

The shot had burst through his canvas, struck a table on which was a large inkstand, and had squirted the whole contents over the despatches he was writing for Paris.

Now this old gentleman prided himself upon the neatness of his despatches: a blot on his paper darkened his soul.

Colonel Dujardin expressed his profound regret. The commander, however, continued to remonstrate. "I have a great deal of writing to do," said he, "as you must be aware; and, when I am writing, I expect to be quiet."

Colonel Dujardin assented respectfully to the justice of this. He then explained at full length why he could not bring a gun in the battery to silence "Long Tom," and quietly asked to be permitted to run a gun out of the trenches, and take a shot at the offender.

"It is a point-blank distance, and I have a new gun, with which a man ought to be able to hit his own ball at three hundred yards."

The commander hesitated.

"I cannot have the men exposed."

"I engage not to lose a man—except him who fires the gun. HE must take his chance."

"Well, colonel, it must be done by volunteers. The men must not be ORDERED out on such a service as that."

Colonel Dujardin bowed, and retired.

"Volunteers to go out of the trenches!" cried Sergeant La Croix, in a stentorian voice, standing erect as a poker, and swelling with importance.

There were fifty offers in less than as many seconds.

"Only twelve allowed to go," said the sergeant; "and I am one," added he, adroitly inserting himself.

A gun was taken down, placed on a carriage, and posted near Death's Alley, but out of the line of fire.

The colonel himself superintended the loading of this gun; and to the surprise of the men had the shot weighed first, and then weighed out the powder himself.

He then waited quietly a long time till the bastion pitched one of its periodical shots into Death's Alley, but no sooner had the shot struck, and sent the sand flying past the two lanes of curious noses, than Colonel Dujardin jumped upon the gun and waved his cocked hat. At this preconcerted signal, his battery opened fire on the bastion, and the battery to his right opened on the wall that fronted them; and the colonel gave the word to run the gun out of the trenches. They ran it out into the cloud of smoke their own guns were belching forth, unseen by the enemy; but they had no sooner twisted it into the line of Long Tom, than the smoke was gone, and there they were, a fair mark.

"Back into the trenches, all but one!" roared Dujardin.

And in they ran like rabbits.

"Quick! the elevation."

Colonel Dujardin and La Croix raised the muzzle to the mark—hoo, hoo, hoo! ping, ping, ping! came the bullets about their ears.

"Away with you!" cried the colonel, taking the linstock from him.

Then Colonel Dujardin, fifteen yards from the trenches, in full blazing uniform, showed two armies what one intrepid soldier can do. He kneeled down and adjusted his gun, just as he would have done in a practising ground. He had a pot shot to take, and a pot shot he would take. He ignored three hundred muskets that were levelled at him. He looked along his gun, adjusted it, and re-adjusted it to a hair's breadth. The enemy's bullets pattered upon it: still he adjusted it delicately. His men were groaning and tearing their hair inside at his danger.

At last it was levelled to his mind, and then his movements were as quick as they had hitherto been slow. In a moment he stood erect in the half-fencing attitude of a gunner, and his linstock at the touch-hole: a huge tongue of flame, a volume of smoke, a roar, and the iron thunderbolt was on its way, and the colonel walked haughtily but rapidly back to the trenches; for in all this no bravado. He was there to make a shot; not to throw a chance of life away watching the effect.

Ten thousand eyes did that for him.

Both French and Prussians risked their own lives craning out to see what a colonel in full uniform was doing under fire from a whole line of forts, and what would be his fate; but when he fired the gun their curiosity left the man and followed the iron thunderbolt.

For two seconds all was uncertain; the ball was travelling.

Tom gave a rear like a wild horse, his protruding muzzle went up sky-high, then was seen no more, and a ring of old iron and a clatter of fragments was heard on the top of the bastion. Long Tom was dismounted. Oh! the roar of laughter and triumph from one end to another of the trenches; and the clapping of forty thousand hands that went on for full five minutes; then the Prussians, either through a burst of generous praise for an act so chivalrous and so brilliant, or because they would not be crowed over, clapped their tea thousand hands as loudly, and thus thundering, heart-thrilling salvo of applause answered salvo on both sides that terrible arena.

That evening came a courteous and flattering message from the commander-in-chief to Colonel Dujardin; and several officers visited his quarters to look at him; they went back disappointed. The cry was, "What a miserable, melancholy dog! I expected to see a fine, dashing fellow."

The trenches neared the town. Colonel Dujardin's mine was far advanced; the end of the chamber was within a few yards of the bastion. Of late, the colonel had often visited this mine in person. He seemed a little uneasy about something in that quarter; but no one knew what: he was a silent man. The third evening, after he dismounted Long Tom, he received private notice that an order was coming down from the commander-in-chief to assault the bastion. He shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing. That same night the colonel and one of his lieutenants stole out of the trenches, and by the help of a pitch-dark, windy night, got under the bastion unperceived, and crept round it, and made their observations, and got safe back. About noon down came General Raimbaut.

"Well, colonel, you are to have your way at last. Your bastion is to be stormed this afternoon previous to the general assault. Why, how is this? you don't seem enchanted?"

"I am not."

"Why, it was you who pressed for the assault."

"At the right time, general, not the wrong. In five days I undertake to blow that bastion into the air. To assault it now would be to waste our men."

General Raimbaut thought this excess of caution a great piece of perversity in Achilles. They were alone, and he said a little peevishly,—

"Is not this to blow hot and cold on the same thing?"

"No, general," was the calm reply. "Not on the same thing. I blew hot upon timorous counsels; I blow cold on rash ones. General, last night Lieutenant Fleming and I were under that bastion; and all round it."

"Ah! my prudent colonel, I thought we should not talk long without your coming out in your true light. If ever a man secretly enjoyed risking his life, it is you."

"No, general," said Dujardin looking gloomily down; "I enjoy neither that nor anything else. Live or die, it is all one to me; but to the lives of my soldiers I am not indifferent, and never will be while I live. My apparent rashness of last night was pure prudence."