ised.

Palpitating, the girl rose to her feet. She was in one of those
moments of crisis when the blood, rushing to the brain, smothers
all judgment. Unconscious, as it were, of her acts, she leaned
over the window, and made a sign to Marius, which he understood very
well, and which meant, "Wait, I am coming down."

"Where are you going, dear?" asked Mme. Favoral, seeing Gilberte
putting on her bonnet.

"To the shop, mamma, to get a shade of worsted I need."

Mlle. Gilberte was not in the habit of going out alone; but it
happened quite often that she would go down in the neighborhood on
some little errand.

"Do you wish the girl to go out with you?" asked Mme. Favoral.

"Oh, it isn't worth while!"

She ran down the stairs; and once out, regardless of the looks that
might be watching her, she walked straight to M. de Tregars, who was
waiting on the corner of the Rue des Minimes.

"You are going away?" she said, too much agitated to notice his own
emotion, which was, however, quite evident.

"I must," he answered.

"Oh!"

"When France is invaded, the place for a man who bears my name is
where the fighting is."

"But there will be fighting in Paris too."

"Paris has four times as many defenders as it needs. It is outside
that soldiers will be wanted."

They walked slowly, as they spoke thus, along the Rue des Minimes,
one of the least frequented in Paris; and there were only to be
seen at this hour five or six soldiers talking in front of the
barracks gate.

"Suppose I were to beg you not to go," resumed Mlle. Gilberte.
"Suppose I beseeched you, Marius!"

"I should remain then," he answered in a troubled voice; "but I
would be betraying my duty, and failing to my honor; and remorse
would weigh upon our whole life. Command now, and I will obey."

They had stopped; and no one seeing them standing there side by
side affectionate and familiar could have believed that they were
speaking to each other for the first time. They themselves did not
notice it, so much had they come, with the help of all-powerful
imagination, and in spite of separation, to the understanding of
intimacy. After a moment of painful reflection,

"I do not ask you any longer to stay," uttered the young girl.
He took her hand, and raised it to his lips.

"I expected no less of your courage," he said, his voice vibrating
with love. But he controlled himself, and, in a more quiet tone,

"Thanks to the indiscretion of Pulei,"