he could give no assistance. At Froeschwiller it was
a single corps against an entire army; they fought like heroes. It was a
complete rout, a panic, and now France lies open to their advance--"

His tears choked further utterance, the words came from his lips
unintelligible, and the three shadows vanished, swallowed up in the
obscurity.

Maurice rose to his feet; a shudder ran through his frame.

"Good God!" he stammeringly exclaimed.

And he could think of nothing else to say, while Jean, in whose bones
the very marrow seemed to be congealing, murmured in his resigned
manner:

"Ah, worse luck! The gentleman, that relative of yours, was right all
the same in saying that they are stronger than we."

Maurice was beside himself, could have strangled him. The Prussians
stronger than the French! The thought made his blood boil. The peasant
calmly and stubbornly added:

"That don't matter, mind you. A man don't give up whipped at the first
knock-down he gets. We shall have to keep hammering away at them all the
same."

But a tall figure arose before them. They recognized Rochas, still
wrapped in his long mantle, whom the fugitive sounds about him, or it
may have been the intuition of disaster, had awakened from his uneasy
slumber. He questioned them, insisted on knowing all. When he was
finally brought, with much difficulty, to see how matters stood, stupor,
immense and profound, filled his boyish, inexpressive eyes. More than
ten times in succession he repeated:

"Beaten! How beaten? Why beaten?"

And that was the calamity that had lain hidden in the blackness of that
night of agony. And now the pale dawn was appearing at the portals of
the east, heralding a day heavy with bitterest sorrow and striking white
upon the silent tents, in one of which began to be visible the ashy
faces of Loubet and Lapoulle, of Chouteau and of Pache, who were snoring
still with wide-open mouths. Forth from the thin mists that were slowly
creeping upward from the river off yonder in the distance came the new
day, bringing with it mourning and affliction.

II.

About eight o'clock the sun dispersed the heavy clouds, and the broad,
fertile plain about Mulhausen lay basking in the warm, bright light of a
perfect August Sunday. From the camp, now awake and bustling with life,
could be heard the bells of the neighboring parishes, pealing merrily
in the limpid air. The cheerful Sunday following so close on ruin and
defeat had it