is guards escorted us. Sir Gervaise Yeovil was accredited
to Lord Castlereagh, but with his permission he brought me here first.
My uncle was too old to come. Arrived here we found the Cossacks, the
wagon-train. There was a battle, a victory, pursuit. Then those
villains seized us. They stole upon us unsuspecting, having murdered
the sentries, and then you came."

"I see. And have you the papers?"

"They are---- Not yet, but I may take them?"

"Assuredly, so far as I am concerned," answered Marteau, "although I
regret to see the old estate pass out of the hands of the ancient
family."

"I regret it also, but I am powerless."

"We played together here as children," said Marteau. "My father has
kept it well since. Your father died and now mine is gone----"

"And I am very sorry," answered the young woman softly.

Marteau turned away, peered out of the window and sank into gloomy
silence.

CHAPTER IX

THE EMPEROR EATS AND RIDES

Sezanne was a scene of the wildest confusion that night. It was
congested with troops and more and more were arriving every minute.
They entered the town in fearful condition. They had been weary and
ragged and naked before. Now they were in a state of extreme
prostration; wet, cold, covered with mud. The roads were blocked with
mired artillery, the guns were sunk into the mud to the hubs, the tired
horses could no longer move them. The woods on either side were full
of stragglers, many of whom had dropped down on the wet ground and
slept the sleep of complete exhaustion. Some, indeed, sick and
helpless, died where they lay. Everything eatable and drinkable in
Sezanne had vanished as a green field before a swarm of locusts when
Marmont's division had come through some hours before.

The town boasted a little square or open space in the midst. A huge
fire was burning in the center of this open space. A cordon of
grenadiers kept the ground about the fire clear of stragglers.
Suddenly the Emperor rode into the midst. He was followed by a wet,
cold, mud-spattered, bedraggled staff, all of them unutterably weary.
Intense resolution blazed in the Emperor's eyes. He had had nothing to
eat or drink since morning, but that ancient bodily vigor, that
wonderful power of endurance, which had stood him in such good stead in
days gone by, seemed to have come back to him now. He was all fire and
energy and determination. So soon as his presence was known, couriers
report