walked on. Sometimes she stopped short, and called Jacques,
then Cinette. Labarre asked himself if it were not his duty to stop this
poor woman, but a secret instinct bade him watch her to the end.

An hour elapsed, but Francoise seemed to feel no fatigue. At the
cross-roads she did not hesitate. Finally they reached the Gorge
d'Outremont. In the fast gathering darkness, the place was horrible and
gloomy. As in a former description we have said, the mountain seemed at
this gorge to have been cleft in twain by a gigantic hatchet.

At this moment, the clouds parted, and a pale young moon looked down on
the landscape.

Francoise stopped short, Pierre well knew why. The little cottage of old
Lasvene had vanished, and the poor woman was bewildered. Labarre went to
her, and took her hand. He knew where the foundations of the cottage
were, and convinced that this was why she had come, he led her to the
ruins. She laughed in a childish way.

"Burned? Ah! yes;" she repeated the cry of the Cossacks. "Death to the
French!" And then she began to run.

It was an outbreak of madness. Caillette and Pierre uttered cries of
fright.

The mystery of such a strange occurrence may never be solved, but
Francoise threw herself on the ground in a corner where the little
garden had stood, and began to dig furiously in the earth. Presently,
she screamed:

"The box! The box! Jacques is not my son; Cinette is the Marquise de
Fongereues. Jacques--Fanfar is Vicomte de Talizac!" And she fell
unconscious into the arms of Labarre.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE NEST.

Two white beds stood near each other. Muslin curtains tied with blue
ribbons covered the windows with billowy folds. Among the pillows of one
of the beds lay a beautiful face, and a young girl at her side held her
frail hands.

This chamber was that of Irene de Salves, and very unlike it was to the
chamber of the spoiled child in the Chateau des Vosges. There she had
created a mixture of all colors--violent reds and yellows. Now
everything was delicate and calm. The sweet face among the pillows was
Francine's. The two young girls were like sisters. Irene felt that to
love, protect, and care for Francine, was to love Fanfar. The shock
Francine had experienced was terrible; she hardly knew what had taken
place--whether she deliberately threw herself into the water, or whether
faint and dizzy, she fell in; when Fanfar leaped to her rescue she clung
to him convulsively. Then came