aris, and on the journey
Pierre suddenly noticed that Marie's cheeks were purpling. There were two
ladies with them in the compartment.

"Ah!" said he, "so you feel warm in your turn now?"

But she protested the contrary, her face glowing more and more brightly
as she spoke, as if some sudden feeling of shame quite upset her. "No,
I'm not warm," said she; "just feel my hands.... But how ridiculous it
is to blush like this without any reason for it!"

He understood her. This was one of those involuntary blushing fits which
so distressed her, and which, as Mere-Grand had remarked, brought her
heart to her very cheeks. There was no cause for it, as she herself said.
After slumbering in all innocence in the solitude of the forest her heart
had begun to beat, despite herself.

Meantime, over yonder at Montmartre, Guillaume had spent his morning in
preparing some of that mysterious powder, the cartridges of which he
concealed upstairs in Mere-Grand's bedroom. Great danger attended this
manufacture. The slightest forgetfulness while he was manipulating the
ingredients, any delay, too, in turning off a tap, might lead to a
terrible explosion, which would annihilate the building and all who might
be in it. For this reason he preferred to work when he was alone, so that
on the one hand there might be no danger for others, and on the other
less likelihood of his own attention being diverted from his task. That
morning, as it happened, his three sons were working in the room, and
Mere-Grand sat sewing near the furnace. Truth to tell, she did not count,
for she scarcely ever left her place, feeling quite at ease there,
however great might be the peril. Indeed, she had become so well
acquainted with the various phases of Guillaume's delicate operations,
and their terrible possibilities, that she would occasionally give him a
helping hand.

That morning, as she sat there mending some house linen,--her eyesight
still being so keen that in spite of her seventy years she wore no
spectacles,--she now and again glanced at Guillaume as if to make sure
that he forgot nothing. Then feeling satisfied, she would once more bend
over her work. She remained very strong and active. Her hair was only
just turning white, and she had kept all her teeth, while her face still
looked refined, though it was slowly withering with age and had acquired
an expression of some severity. As a rule she was a woman of few words;
her life was one of activity a