ubt he only
saw the fighting from a distance."

Desiree, from whose face the colour had faded, nodded cheerfully enough.

"Oh yes," she answered, "I have no doubt he is safe. He has good
fortune."

For she was an apt pupil, and had already learnt that the world only
wishes to leave us in undisputed possession of our anxieties or sorrows,
however ready it may be to come forward and take a hand in good fortune.

"But there is no definite news," said Mathilde, hardly looking up from
the needlework at which her fingers were so deft and industrious.

"No."

"No news of Charles, I mean," she continued, "or of any of our friends.
Of Monsieur de Casimir, for instance?"

"No. As for Colonel de Casimir," returned Sebastian thoughtfully,
"he, like Charles, holds some staff appointment of which one does not
understand the scope. He is without doubt uninjured."

Mathilde glanced at her father not without suspicion. His grand manner
might easily be at times a screen. One never knows how much is perceived
by those who look down from a high place.

The town was quiet enough all that night. Sebastian must have heard the
news from some unofficial source, for none other seemed to know it. But
at daybreak the church bells, so rarely used in Dantzig for rejoicing,
awoke the burghers to the fact that the Emperor bade them make merry.
Napoleon gave great heed to such matters. In the churches of Lithuania
and farther on in Russia he had commanded the popes to pray for him at
their altars instead of for the Czar.

When Desiree came downstairs, she found a packet awaiting her. The
courier had come in during the night. This was more than a letter.
A number of papers had been folded in a handkerchief and bound with
string. The address was written on a piece of white leather cut from
the uniform of one who had fallen at Borodino, and had no more need of
sabretasche or trapping.

"Madame Desiree Darragon--nee Sebastian,
Frauengasse 36,
Dantzig."

Desiree's heart stood still; for the writing was unknown to her. As she
cut the network of string, she thought that Charles was dead. When the
enclosed papers fell upon the table, she was sure of it; for they were
all in his writing. She did not pick and choose as one would who has
leisure and no very strong excitement, but took up the first paper and
read:

"Dear C.--I have been fortunate, as you will see from the enclosed
report. His Majesty cann