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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
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