realized that the young man's life
was in balance. She clasped her hands; she prayed. Pere Merlier, beside
her, maintained silence and the rigid attitude of an old peasant who
does not struggle against fate.

"Oh, MON DIEU! Oh, MON DIEU!" murmured Francoise. "They are going to
kill him!"

The miller drew her to him and took her on his knees as if she had been
a child.

At that moment the officer came out, while behind him two men brought
Dominique.

"Never! Never!" cried the latter. "I am ready to die!"

"Think well," resumed the officer. "The service you refuse me another
will render us. I am generous: I offer you your life. I want you simply
to guide us through the forest to Montredon. There must be pathways
leading there."

Dominique was silent.

"So you persist in your infatuation, do you?"

"Kill me and end all this!" replied the young man.

Francoise, her hands clasped, supplicated him from afar. She had
forgotten everything; she would have advised him to commit an act of
cowardice. But Pere Merlier seized her hands that the Prussians might
not see her wild gestures.

"He is right," he whispered: "it is better to die!"

The platoon of execution was there. The officer awaited a sign of
weakness on Dominique's part. He still expected to conquer him. No one
spoke. In the distance violent crashes of thunder were heard. Oppressive
heat weighed upon the country. But suddenly, amid the silence, a cry
broke forth:

"The French! The French!"

Yes, the French were at hand. Upon the Sauval highway, at the edge of
the wood, the line of red pantaloons could be distinguished. In the mill
there was an extraordinary agitation. The Prussian soldiers ran hither
and thither with guttural exclamations. Not a shot had yet been fired.

"The French! The French!" cried Francoise, clapping her hands.

She was wild with joy. She escaped from her father's grasp; she laughed
and tossed her arms in the air. At last they had come and come in time,
since Dominique was still alive!

A terrible platoon fire, which burst upon her ears like a clap of
thunder, caused her to turn. The officer muttered between his teeth:

"Before everything, let us settle this affair!"

And with his own hand pushing Dominique against the wall of a shed he
ordered his men to fire. When Francoise looked Dominique lay upon the
ground with blood streaming from his neck and shoulders.

She did not weep; she stood stupefied. Her eyes grew fixed, an