r me, you spoil me. Alas! why am I not more
worthy of your love?"

"More worthy! How can that be?"

Rose sighed.

"But I will atone for all. I will make you a better--(here she
substituted a full stop for a substantive)--than you expect. You will
see else."

She lingered at the door: a proof that if Edouard, at that particular
moment, had seized another kiss, there would have been no very violent
opposition or offence.

But he was not so impudent as some. He had been told to wait till
the next meeting for that. He prayed Heaven to bless her, and so the
affianced lovers parted for the night.

It was about nine o'clock. Edouard, instead of returning to his
lodgings, started down towards the town, to conclude a bargain with the
innkeeper for an English mare he was in treaty for. He wanted her
for to-morrow's work; so that decided him to make the purchase. In
purchases, as in other matters, a feather turns the balanced scale. He
sauntered leisurely down. It was a very clear night; the full moon and
the stars shining silvery and vivid. Edouard's heart swelled with joy.
He was loved after all, deeply loved; and in three short weeks he was
actually to be Rose's husband: her lord and master. How like a heavenly
dream it all seemed--the first hopeless courtship, and now the wedding
fixed! But it was no dream; he felt her soft words still murmur music at
his heart, and the shadow of her velvet lips slept upon his own.

He had strolled about a league when he heard the ring of a horse's hoofs
coming towards him, accompanied by a clanking noise; it came nearer and
nearer, till it reached a hill that lay a little ahead of Edouard; then
the sounds ceased; the cavalier was walking his horse up the hill.

Presently, as if they had started from the earth, up popped between
Edouard and the sky, first a cocked hat that seemed in that light to be
cut with a razor out of flint; then the wearer, phosphorescent here and
there; so brightly the keen moonlight played on his epaulets and steel
scabbard. A step or two nearer, and Edouard gave a great shout; it was
Colonel Raynal.

After the first warm greeting, and questions and answers, Raynal told
him he was on his way to the Rhine with despatches.

"To the Rhine?"

"I am allowed six days to get there. I made a calculation, and found I
could give Beaurepaire half a day. I shall have to make up for it by
hard riding. You know me; always in a hurry. It is Bonaparte's fault
this time.