offering for
the venerable priest who had officiated. Just as Dolores and Cornelia
were leaving the room, the brave old man passed them. He was arrayed in
the garb of a worthy patriot, and was so effectually disguised that they
would not have recognized him if he had not addressed them. As for the
altar, it had disappeared as if by enchantment.

So, either in this house or in some other, Dolores regularly attended
the offices of her church. Not a Sunday passed that Cornelia did not
conduct her to some mysterious retreat, where a little band of
brave-hearted Christians met to worship together. She was in this way
made familiar with heroic deeds which gave her courage to brave the
dangers that threatened every one in those trying days, and she was thus
initiated into a sort of league, formed without previous intent, for the
purpose of providing a means of escape for those who were in danger of
becoming the victims of the dread and merciless Committee of Public
Safety. It was in this way that she was led to accompany Cornelia one
evening when the latter went to carry food to a nobleman whose life was
in danger, and who was concealed in the neighborhood of the Invalides,
and, on another occasion, to aid in the escape of an old man who had
been condemned to die. The enthusiasm of Dolores was so great that she
often exposed herself to danger imprudently and unnecessarily. She was
proud and happy to assist the Bridouls in their efforts, and she
conceived for them an admiration and an affection which inspired her
with the desire to equal them in their noble work to which they had so
bravely consecrated themselves.

But Coursegol, ignorant of most of the dangers to which Dolores exposed
herself, or who knew of them only when it was too late to blame her for
her temerity, had not lost sight of the motives which had induced him
to accompany the girl on her expedition to Paris.

What they had aimed to do, as the reader doubtless recollects, was to
find Philip de Chamondrin and Antoinette de Mirandol, who had both been
missing since the death of the Marquis and the destruction of the
chateau. Though Bridoul persisted in declaring that his former captain
was not in Paris, Coursegol was not discouraged. For three months he
pursued an unremitting search. He found several men who, like himself,
had formed a part of M. de Chamondrin's company. He succeeded in
effecting an entrance to the houses of some of the friends whom his
master h