the road between Chene and Vouziers. The
apothecary labored vainly to dissuade him, and had almost made up his
mind to put his horse in the gig and drive him over in person, trusting
to fortune to befriend him in finding the regiment, when Fernand, the
apprentice, appeared, alleging as an excuse for his absence that he had
been to see his sister. The youth was a tall, tallow-faced individual,
who looked as if he had not the spirit of a mouse; the horse was quickly
hitched to the carriage and he drove off with Maurice. It was not
yet five o'clock; the rain was pouring in torrents from a sky of inky
blackness, and the dim carriage-lamps faintly illuminated the road and
cast little fitful gleams of light across the streaming fields on either
side, over which came mysterious sounds that made them pull up from time
to time in the belief that the army was at hand.

Jean, meantime, down there before Vouziers, had not been slumbering.
Maurice had explained to him how the retreat was to be salvation to them
all, and he was keeping watch, holding his men together and waiting for
the order to move, which might come at any minute. About two o'clock, in
the intense darkness that was dotted here and there by the red glow of
the watch-fires, a great trampling of horses resounded through the
camp; it was the advance-guard of cavalry moving off toward Balay
and Quatre-Champs so as to observe the roads from Boult-aux-Bois and
Croix-aux-Bois; then an hour later the infantry and artillery also put
themselves in motion, abandoning at last the positions of Chestre and
Falaise that they had defended so persistently for two long days against
an enemy who never showed himself. The sky had become overcast, the
darkness was profound, and one by one the regiments marched out in
deepest silence, an array of phantoms stealing away into the bosom of
the night. Every heart beat joyfully, however, as if they were escaping
from some treacherous pitfall; already in imagination the troops beheld
themselves under the walls of Paris, where their revenge was awaiting
them.

Jean looked out into the thick blackness. The road was bordered with
trees on either hand and, as far as he could see, appeared to lie
between wide meadows. Presently the country became rougher; there was a
succession of sharp rises and descents, and just as they were entering
a village which he supposed to be Balay, two straggling rows of houses
bordering the road, the dense cloud that