aper had caused her.

"He wrote me a few days ago," replied he.

"Where is he?"

"In Italy, with his battalion, which is a part of the first army corps.
His last letter is dated from Alexandria."

Reine's eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she gazed absently at the
distant wooded horizon.

"Poor Claudet!" murmured she, sighing, "what is he doing just now, I
wonder?"

"Ah!" thought Julien, his visage darkening, "perhaps she loves him
still!"

Poor Claudet! At the very time they are thus talking about him at the
farm, he is camping with his battalion near Voghera, on the banks of one
of the obscure tributaries of the river Po, in a country rich in waving
corn, interspersed with bounteous orchards and hardy vines climbing up to
the very tops of the mulberry-trees. His battalion forms the extreme end
of the advance guard, and at the approach of night, Claudet is on duty on
the banks of the stream. It is a lovely May night, irradiated by millions
of stars, which, under the limpid Italian sky, appear larger and nearer
to the watcher than they appeared in the vaporous atmosphere of the
Haute-Marne.

Nightingales are calling to one another among the trees of the orchard,
and the entire landscape seems imbued with their amorous music. What
ecstasy to listen to them! What serenity their liquid harmonies spread
over the smiling landscape, faintly revealing its beauties in the mild
starlight.

Who would think that preparations for deadly combat were going on through
the serenity of such a night? Occasionally a sharp exchange of musketry
with the advanced post of the enemy bursts upon the ear, and all the
nightingales keep silence. Then, when quiet is restored in the upper air,
the chorus of spring songsters begins again. Claudet leans on his gun,
and remembers that at this same hour the nightingales in the park at
Vivey, and in the garden of La Thuiliere, are pouring forth the same
melodies. He recalls the bright vision of Reine: he sees her leaning at
her window, listening to the same amorous song issuing from the coppice
woods of Maigrefontaine. His heart swells within him, and an
over-powering homesickness takes possession of him. But the next moment
he is ashamed of his weakness, he remembers his responsibility, primes
his ear, and begins investigating the dark hollows and rising hillocks
where an enemy might hide.

The next morning, May 20th, he is awakened by a general hubbub and noise
of fighting. The battali