d of the last of his stock-in-trade when
up came the 7th corps and he found himself in the middle of a terrible
hubbub. Everyone was running, pushing, and crowding. Then he became
alarmed lest they should take his horse and wagon from him, and drove
off, leaving his servant, who was just then making some purchases in the
town.

"Oh, Silvine will come back all right," he concluded in his tranquil
voice. "She must have taken shelter with Doctor Dalichamp, her
godfather. You would think to look at her that she wouldn't dare to say
boo to a goose, but she is a girl of courage, all the same. Yes, yes;
she has lots of good qualities, Silvine has."

Was it an attempt on his part to be jocose? or did he wish to explain
why it was he kept her in his service, that girl who had caused
dissension between father and son, whose child by the Prussian was in
the house? He again gave his boy that sidelong look and laughed his
voiceless laugh.

"Little Charlot is asleep there in his room; she surely won't be long
away, now."

Honore, with quivering lips, looked so intently at his father that the
old man began to pace the floor again. _Mon Dieu!_ yes, the child was
there; doubtless he would have to look on him. A painful silence filled
the room, while he mechanically cut himself more bread and began to eat
again. Jean also continued his operations in that line, without finding
it necessary to say a word. Maurice contemplated the furniture, the old
sideboard, the antique clock, and reflected on the long summer days that
he had spent at Remilly in bygone times with his sister Henriette. The
minutes slipped away, the clock struck eleven.

"The devil!" he murmured, "it will never do to let the regiment go off
without us!"

He stepped to the window and opened it, Fouchard making no objection.
Beneath lay the valley, a great bowl filled to the brim with blackness;
presently, however, when his eyes became more accustomed to the
obscurity, he had no difficulty in distinguishing the bridge,
illuminated by the fires on the two banks. The cuirassiers were passing
still, like phantoms in their long white cloaks, while their steeds trod
upon the bosom of the stream and a chill wind of terror breathed on
them from behind; and so the spectral train moved on, apparently
interminable, in an endless, slow-moving vision of unsubstantial forms.
Toward the right, over the bare hills where the slumbering army lay,
there brooded a stillness and repose l