composure. She dried her friend's eyes, and
made her rise from the lounge and arrange her disordered clothing.

"Listen, my dear; I cannot bring myself to scold you, and yet you know
what my sentiments must be. But I was so alarmed by the stories I heard
about the Prussian, the business wore such an extremely ugly aspect,
that this affair really comes to me as a sort of relief by comparison.
Cease weeping; things may come out all right."

Her action was taken none too soon, for almost immediately Delaherche
and his mother entered the room. He said that he had made up his mind to
take the train for Brussels that afternoon and had been giving orders to
have a carriage ready to carry him across the frontier into Belgium;
so he had come to say good-by to his wife. Then turning and addressing
Henriette:

"You need have no further fears. M. de Gartlauben, just is he was going
away, promised me he would attend to your uncle's case, and although I
shall not be here, my wife will keep an eye to it."

Since Madame Delaherche had made her appearance in the apartment
Gilberte had not once taken her anxious eyes from off her face. Would
she speak, would she tell what she had seen, and keep her son from
starting on his projected journey? The elder lady, also, soon as
she crossed the threshold, had bent her fixed gaze in silence on her
daughter-in-law. Doubtless her stern patriotism induced her to view the
matter in somewhat the same light that Henriette had viewed it. _Mon
Dieu!_ since it was that young man, that Frenchman who had fought so
bravely, was it not her duty to forgive, even as she had forgiven once
before, in Captain Beaudoin's case? A look of greater softness rose to
her eyes; she averted her head. Her son might go; Edmond would be there
to protect Gilberte against the Prussian. She even smiled faintly, she
whose grim face had never once relaxed since the news of the victory at
Coulmiers.

"_Au revoir_," she said, folding her son in her arms. "Finish up your
business quickly as you can and come back to us."

And she took herself slowly away, returning to the prison-like chamber
across the corridor, where the colonel, with his dull gaze, was peering
into the shadows that lay outside the disk of bright light which fell
from the lamp.

Henriette returned to Remilly that same evening, and one morning, three
days afterward, had the pleasure to see Father Fouchard come walking
into the house, as calmly as if he had mer