. Lacheneur shook his head.

"Monsieur Maurice," said he, "is young; he will console himself--he will
forget."

"Never!" interrupted the unhappy lover--"never!"

"And your daughter?" inquired the baroness.

Ah! this was the weak spot in his armor; the instinct of a mother was
not mistaken. M. Lacheneur hesitated a moment; but he finally conquered
the weakness that had threatened to master him.

"Marie-Anne," he replied, slowly, "knows her duty too well not to obey
when I command. When I tell her the motive that governs my conduct, she
will become resigned; and if she suffers, she will know how to conceal
her sufferings."

He paused suddenly. They heard in the distance a firing of musketry, the
discharge of rifles, whose sharp ring overpowered even the sullen roar
of cannon.

Every face grew pale. Circumstances imparted to these sounds an ominous
significance.

With the same anguish clutching the hearts of both, M. d'Escorval and
Lacheneur sprang out upon the terrace.

But all was still again. Extended as was the horizon, the eye could
discern nothing unusual. The sky was blue; not a particle of smoke hung
over the trees.

"It is the enemy," muttered M. Lacheneur, in a tone which told how
gladly he would have shouldered his gun, and, with five hundred others,
marched against the united allies.

He paused. The explosions were repeated with still greater violence, and
for a period of five minutes succeeded each other without cessation.

M. d'Escorval listened with knitted brows.

"That is not the fire of an engagement," he murmured.

To remain long in such a state of uncertainty was out of the question.

"If you will permit me, father," ventured Maurice, "I will go and
ascertain----"

"_Go_," replied the baron, quietly; "but if it is anything, which I
doubt, do not expose yourself to danger; return."

"Oh! be prudent!" insisted Mme. d'Escorval, who already saw her son
exposed to the most frightful peril.

"Be prudent!" entreated Marie-Anne, who alone understood what
attractions danger might have for a despairing and unhappy man.

These precautions were unnecessary. As Maurice was rushing to the door,
his father stopped him.

"Wait," said he; "here is someone who can probably give us information."

A man had just appeared around a turn of the road leading to Sairmeuse.

He was advancing bareheaded in the middle of the dusty road, with
hurried strides, and occasionally brandishing his stick, as if