quarries there and excavations in the ground, in which a network of narrow paths had their termination.  A little further on was a mill, seated on the border of the stream.  Then the road curved and pursued a descending course until it entered the village of Iges, which was built on the hillside and connected by a ferry with the further shore, just opposite the rope-walk at Saint-Albert.  Last of all came meadows and cultivated fields, a broad expanse of level, treeless country, around which the river swept in a wide, circling bend.  In vain had Maurice scrutinized every inch of uneven ground on the hillside; all he could distinguish there was cavalry and artillery, preparing their quarters for the night.  He made further inquiries, applying among others to a corporal of chasseurs d’Afrique, who could give him no information.  The prospect for finding his regiment looked bad; night was coming down, and, leg-weary and disheartened, he seated himself for a moment on a stone by the wayside.

As he sat there, abandoning himself to the sensation of loneliness and despair that crept over him, he beheld before him, across the Meuse, the accursed fields where he had fought the day but one before.  Bitter memories rose to his mind, in the fading light of that day of gloom and rain, as he surveyed the saturated, miry expanse of country that rose from the river’s bank and was lost on the horizon.  The defile of Saint-Albert, the narrow road by which the Prussians had gained their rear, ran along the bend of the stream as far as the white cliffs of the quarries of Montimont.  The summits of the trees in the wood of la Falizette rose in rounded, fleecy masses over the rising ground of Seugnon.  Directly before his eyes, a little to the left, was Saint-Menges, the road from which descended by a gentle slope and ended at the ferry; there, too, were the mamelon of Hattoy in the center, and Illy, in the far distance, in the background, and Fleigneux, almost hidden in its shallow vale, and Floing, less remote, on the right.  He recognized the plateau where he had spent interminable hours among the cabbages, and the eminences that the reserve artillery had struggled so gallantly to hold, where he had seen Honore meet his death on his dismounted gun.  And it was as if the baleful scene were again before him with all its abominations, steeping his mind in horror and disgust, until he was sick at heart.

The reflection that soon it would be quite dark and it would not do to loiter there, however, caused him to resume his researches.  He said to himself that perhaps the regiment was encamped somewhere beyond the village on the low ground, but the only ones he encountered there were some prowlers, and he decided to make the circuit of the peninsula, following the bend of the stream.  As he was passing through a field of potatoes he was sufficiently thoughtful to dig a few of the tubers and put them in his pockets; they were not ripe, but he had nothing better, for