arefully closed, the furniture
shone with cleanliness, the bed had been made after a fashion that
showed that Brigitte and the Countess had given their minds to every
trifling detail. It was impossible not to read her hopes in the dainty
and thoughtful preparations about the room; love and a mother's
tenderest caresses seemed to pervade the air in the scent of flowers.
None but a mother could have foreseen the requirements of a soldier and
arranged so completely for their satisfaction. A dainty meal, the best
of wine, clean linen, slippers--no necessary, no comfort, was lacking
for the weary traveler, and all the delights of home heaped upon him
should reveal his mother's love.

"Oh, Brigitte!..." cried the Countess, with a heart-rending inflection
in her voice. She drew a chair to the table as if to strengthen her
illusions and realize her longings.

"Ah! madame, he is coming. He is not far off.... I haven't a doubt that
he is living and on his way," Brigitte answered. "I put a key in the
Bible and held it on my fingers while Cottin read the Gospel of St.
John, and the key did not turn, madame."

"Is that a certain sign?" the Countess asked.

"Why, yes, madame! everybody knows that. He is still alive; I would
stake my salvation on it; God cannot be mistaken."

"If only I could see him here in the house, in spite of the danger."

"Poor Monsieur Auguste!" cried Brigitte; "I expect he is tramping along
the lanes!"

"And that is eight o'clock striking now!" cried the Countess in terror.

She was afraid that she had been too long in the room where she felt
sure that her son was alive; all those preparations made for him meant
that he was alive. She went down, but she lingered a moment in the
peristyle for any sound that might waken the sleeping echoes of the
town. She smiled at Brigitte's husband, who was standing there on
guard; the man's eyes looked stupid with the strain of listening to the
faint sounds of the night. She stared into the darkness, seeing her son
in every shadow everywhere; but it was only for a moment. Then she went
back to the drawing-room with an assumption of high spirits, and began
to play at loto with the little girls. But from time to time she
complained of feeling unwell, and went to sit in her great chair by the
fireside. So things went in Mme. de Dey's house and in the minds of
those beneath her roof.

Meanwhile, on the road from Paris to Cherbourg, a young man, dressed in
the inevitab