of their disappearance.

"Ah, my poor friends!" he stammered, utterly crestfallen in his
bewilderment and stupefaction, he who but a moment before had come
through the gate with a smile on his lips and an air of good-fellowship,
magnanimously forgetting his superior advantages in his desire for
popularity.

Jean had taken possession of the remaining loaf and saved it from the
hungry crew, and while he and Maurice, seated by the roadside, were
making great inroads in it, Delaherche opened his budget of news for
their benefit. His wife, the Lord be praised! was very well, but he was
greatly alarmed for the colonel, who had sunk into a condition of deep
prostration, although his mother continued to bear him company from
morning until night.

"And my sister?" Maurice inquired.

"Ah, yes! your sister; true. She insisted on coming with me; it was
she who brought the two loaves of bread. She had to remain over yonder,
though, on the other side of the canal; the sentries wouldn't let her
pass the gate. You know the Prussians have strictly prohibited the
presence of women in the peninsula."

Then he spoke of Henriette, and of her fruitless attempts to see her
brother and come to his assistance. Once in Sedan chance had brought
her face to face with Cousin Gunther, the man who was captain in the
Prussian Guards. He had passed her with his haughty, supercilious
air, pretending not to recognize her. She, also, with a sensation
of loathing, as if she were in the presence of one of her husband's
murderers, had hurried on with quickened steps; then, with a sudden
change of purpose for which she could not account, had turned back and
told him all the manner of Weiss's death, in harsh accents of reproach.
And he, thus learning how horribly a relative had met his fate, had
taken the matter coolly; it was the fortune of war; the same thing might
have happened to himself. His face, rendered stoically impassive by the
discipline of the soldier, had barely betrayed the faintest evidence
of interest. After that, when she informed him that her brother was
a prisoner and besought him to use his influence to obtain for her an
opportunity of seeing him, he had excused himself on the ground that he
was powerless in the matter; the instructions were explicit and might
not be disobeyed. He appeared to place the regimental orderly book on
a par with the Bible. She left him with the clearly defined impression
that he believed he was in the coun