her fair name--that
she will take to the grave in spite of you all--promise that you will
leave Raynal's house this minute if he is alive, and let me die in honor
as I have lived."

"No, no!" cried Camille, terror-stricken; "it cannot be. Heaven is
merciful, and Heaven sees how happy we are. Be calm! these are idle
fears; be calm! I say. For if it is so I will obey you. I will stay; I
will go; I will die; I will live; I will obey you."

"Swear this to me by the thing you hold most sacred," she almost
shrieked.

"I swear by my love for you," was his touching reply.

Ere they had recovered a miserable composure after this passionate
outburst, all the more terrible as coming from a creature so tender
as Josephine, agitated voices were heard at the door, and the baroness
tottered in, followed by the doctor, who was trying in vain to put some
bounds to her emotion and her hopes.

"Oh, my children! my children!" cried she, trembling violently. "Here,
Rose, my hands shake so; take this key, open the cabinet, there is the
Moniteur. What is the date?"

The journal was found, and rapidly examined. The date was the 20th of
May.

"There!" cried Camille. "I told you!"

The baroness uttered a feeble moan. Her hopes died as suddenly as they
had been born, and she sank drooping into a chair, with a bitter sigh.

Camille stole a joyful look at Josephine. She was in the same attitude
looking straight before her as at a coming horror. Presently Rose
uttered a faint cry, "The battle was BEFORE."

"To be sure," cried the doctor. "You forget, it is not the date of the
paper we want, but of the battle it records. For Heaven's sake, when was
the battle?"

"The 3d of May," said Josephine, in a voice that seemed to come from the
tomb.

Rose's hands that held the journal fell like a dead weight upon her
knees, journal and all. She whispered, "It was the 3d of May."

"Ah!" cried the baroness, starting up, "he may yet be alive. He must be
alive. Heaven is merciful! Heaven would not take my son from me, a poor
old woman who has not long to live. There was a letter; where is the
letter?"

"Are we mad, not to read the letter?" said the doctor. "I had it; it has
dropped from my old fingers when I went for the journal."

A short examination of the room showed the letter lying crumpled up near
the door. Camille gave it to the baroness. She tried to read it, but
could not.

"I am old," said she; "my hand shakes and my eyes are troubl