ey are pardoned," she said; "I do not know on what conditions, but
they are pardoned. I did all I could for you, dear friend--against the
advice of others. I thought I had saved you; but the Emperor deceived me
with his graciousness."

"It was written above," said Michu, "that the watch-dog should be killed
on the spot where his old masters died."

The last hour passed rapidly. Michu, at the moment of parting, asked
to kiss her hand, but Laurence held her cheek to the lips of the noble
victim that he might sacredly kiss it. Michu refused to mount the cart.

"Innocent men should go afoot," he said.

He would not let the abbe give him his arm; resolutely and with dignity
he walked alone to the scaffold. As he laid his head on the plank he
said to the executioner, after asking him to turn down the collar of his
coat, "My clothes belong to you; try not to spot them."

* * * * *

The four gentlemen had hardly time to even see Mademoiselle de
Cinq-Cygne. An orderly of the general commanding the division to which
they were assigned, brought them their commissions as sub-lieutenants in
the same regiment of cavalry, with orders to proceed at once to Bayonne,
the base of supplies for its particular army-corps. After a scene of
heart-rending farewells, for they all foreboded what the future should
bring forth, Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne returned to her desolate home.

The two brothers were killed together under the eyes of the Emperor at
Sommo-Sierra, the one defending the other, both being already in command
of their troop. The last words of each were, "Laurence, _cy meurs_!"

The elder d'Hauteserre died a colonel at the attack on the redoubt at
Moscow, where his brother took his place.

Adrien d'Hauteserre, appointed brigadier-general at the battle of
Dresden, was dangerously wounded there and was sent to Cinq-Cygne
for proper nursing. While endeavoring to save this relic of the four
gentlemen who for a few brief months had been so happy around her,
Laurence, then thirty-two years of age, married him. She offered him a
withered heart, but he accepted it; those who truly love doubt nothing
or doubt all.

The Restoration found Laurence without enthusiasm. The Bourbons returned
too late for her. Nevertheless, she had no cause for complaint. Her
husband, made peer of France with the title of Marquis de Cinq-Cygne,
became lieutenant-general in 1816, and was rewarded with the blue ribbon
for th