“Yes, yes, Father Fouchard; it is I.”  And she quickly asked:  “And Charlot?”

“He is abed and asleep.”

“That is well!  Thanks.”

There was no longer cause for her to hasten; she gave utterance to a deep-drawn sigh, as if to rid herself of her burden of fatigue and distress.

“Go in by the window,” said Fouchard.  “There is company in there.”

She was greatly agitated when, leaping lightly into the room, she beheld the three men.  In the uncertain candle-light she gave the impression of being very dark, with thick black hair and a pair of large, fine, lustrous eyes, the chief adornment of a small oval face, strong by reason of its tranquil resignation.  The sudden meeting with Honore had sent all the blood rushing from her heart to her cheeks; and yet she was hardly surprised to find him there; he had been in her thoughts all the way home from Raucourt.

He, trembling with agitation, his heart in his throat, spoke with affected calmness: 

“Good-evening, Silvine.”

“Good-evening, Honore.”

Then, to keep from breaking down and bursting into tears, she turned away, and recognizing Maurice, gave him a smile.  Jean’s presence was embarrassing to her.  She felt as if she were choking somehow, and removed the foulard that she wore about her neck.

Honore continued, dropping the friendly thou of other days: 

“We were anxious about you, Silvine, on account of the Prussians being so near at hand.”

All at once her face became very pale and showed great distress; raising her hand to her eyes as if to shut out some atrocious vision, and directing an involuntary glance toward the room where Charlot was slumbering, she murmured: 

“The Prussians—­ Oh! yes, yes, I saw them.”

Sinking wearily upon a chair she told how, when the 7th corps came into Raucourt, she had fled for shelter to the house of her godfather, Doctor Dalichamp, hoping that Father Fouchard would think to come and take her up before he left the town.  The main street was filled with a surging throng, so dense that not even a dog could have squeezed his way through it, and up to four o’clock she had felt no particular alarm, tranquilly employed in scraping lint in company with some of the ladies of the place; for the doctor, with the thought that they might be called on to care for some of the wounded, should there be a battle over in the direction of Metz and Verdun, had been busying himself for the last two weeks with improvising a hospital in the great hall of the mairie.  Some people who dropped in remarked that they might find use for their hospital sooner than they expected, and sure enough, a little after midday, the roar of artillery had reached their ears from over Beaumont way.  But that was not near enough to cause anxiety and no one was alarmed, when, all at once, just as the last of the French troops were filing out of Raucourt,