tenant carried in a belt about his body had
been spilled at the same time as his life-blood, and lay scattered among
his entrails. There were Adolphe, the driver, and the gunner, Louis,
clasped in each other's arms in a fierce embrace, their sightless orbs
starting from their sockets, mated even in death. And there, at last,
was Honore, recumbent on his disabled gun as on a bed of honor, with
the great rent in his side that had let out his young life, his face,
unmutilated and beautiful in its stern anger, still turned defiantly
toward the Prussian batteries.

"Oh! my friend," sobbed Silvine, "my friend, my friend--"

She had fallen to her knees on the damp, cold ground, her hands joined
as if in prayer, in an outburst of frantic grief. The word friend, the
only name by which it occurred to her to address him, told the story of
the tender affection she had lost in that man, so good, so loving, who
had forgiven her, had meant to make her his wife, despite the ugly past.
And now all hope was dead within her bosom, there was nothing left to
make life desirable. She had never loved another; she would put away her
love for him at the bottom of her heart and hold it sacred there. The
rain had ceased; a flock of crows that circled above the three trees,
croaking dismally, affected her like a menace of evil. Was he to be
taken from her again, her cherished dead, whom she had recovered with
such difficulty? She dragged herself along upon her knees, and with a
trembling hand brushed away the hungry flies that were buzzing about her
friend's wide-open eyes.

She caught sight of a bit of blood-stained paper between Honore's
stiffened fingers. It troubled her; she tried to gain possession of the
paper, pulling at it gently, but the dead man would not surrender it,
seemingly tightening his hold on it, guarding it so jealously that it
could not have been taken from him without tearing it in bits. It was
the letter she had written him, that he had always carried next his
heart, and that he had taken from its hiding place in the moment of his
supreme agony, as if to bid her a last farewell. It seemed so strange,
was such a revelation, that he should have died thinking of her; when
she saw what it was a profound delight filled her soul in the midst of
her affliction. Yes, surely, she would leave it with him, the letter
that was so dear to him! she would not take it from him, since he was so
bent on carrying it with him to the grave. He