ks by this time, but there are masterless men
abroad."

"I shall know how to deal with them," said the young officer, saluting.

"You will also send men to remove these dead bodies and clear up this
room. Take this poor lad"--pointing to Pierre--"and see that he is
cared for. You will find a place for him upstairs. Your regimental
surgeon----"

"Is attending to the wounded. I will see that the boy gets every care,
sir."

"And Bal-Arret?"

"His arm is dressed, and he is the admiration of the camp-fire."

"I suppose so."

"Any other orders, Major?"

"None; you may go."

"Mademoiselle," said Marteau, facing the Countess as the officer turned
away, his men taking the dead bodies and the wounded peasant with them,
"you wrong me terribly."

"By saving your life, pray?" she asked contemptuously.

"By--by--your----" he faltered and stopped.

"In what way, Monsieur le Comte?" interrupted the young woman, who knew
very well what the young man meant.

In her irritating use of his new-found title, and in the way in which
it fell from her lips, she cut him like a whip-lash, and she did it
deliberately, too--he, the Count, forsooth!

"Call me Marteau," he protested, stepping toward her, at which she fell
back a little. "Or, better still, as when I was a boy, your faithful
follower, Jean."

"If the Emperor has the power, he has made you a Count; if he has not,
you are not."

"What the Emperor makes me is of little consequence between us,
mademoiselle. It is what I am that counts."

"And you remain, then, just Jean Marteau, of the loyal Marteaux?"

"One does not wipe out the devotion of years in a moment. My father
served yours, your grandfather, your uncle, your father. I am
still"--he threw up his head proudly as he made the confession--"your
man."

"But the title----"

"What is a title? Your uncle is in England. He does not purpose to
come back to France unless he whom he calls his rightful king again
rules the land. Should that come to be, my poor patent of nobility
would not be worth the parchment upon which it was engrossed."

"And the lands?"

"In any case I would but hold them in trust for the Marquis----"

"My uncle is old, childless. I am the last of the long line."

"Then I will hold them for you, mademoiselle. They are yours. When
this war is over, and France is at peace once more, I will take my
father's place and keep them for you."

"I could not accept such a sacrifice."