Berthier, had refused to accept his resignation under
existing circumstances. To the official despatch was added a private
letter, in which, without explaining the mission of Mademoiselle de
Verneuil, the minister informed him that the affair was entirely outside
of the war, and not to interfere with any military operations. The duty
of the commanders, he said, was limited to giving assistance to that
honorable _citoyenne_, if occasion arose. Learning from his scouts that
the movements of the Chouans all tended towards a concentration of their
forces in the neighborhood of Fougeres, Hulot secretly and with forced
marches brought two battalions of his brigade into the town. The
nation's danger, his hatred of aristocracy, whose partisans threatened
to convulse so large a section of country, his desire to avenge his
murdered friends, revived in the old veteran the fire of his youth.

* * * * *

"So this is the life I craved," exclaimed Mademoiselle de Verneuil, when
she was left alone with Francine. "No matter how fast the hours go, they
are to me like centuries of thought."

Suddenly she took Francine's hand, and her voice, soft as that of
the first red-throat singing after a storm, slowly gave sound to the
following words:--

"Try as I will to forget them, I see those two delicious lips, that chin
just raised, those eyes of fire; I hear the 'Hue!' of the postilion; I
dream, I dream,--why then such hatred on awakening!"

She drew a long sigh, rose, and then for the first time looked out upon
the country delivered over to civil war by the cruel leader whom she was
plotting to destroy. Attracted by the scene she wandered out to breathe
at her ease beneath the sky; and though her steps conducted her at a
venture, she was surely led to the Promenade of the town by one of those
occult impulses of the soul which lead us to follow hope irrationally.
Thoughts conceived under the dominion of that spell are often
realized; but we then attribute their pre-vision to a power we call
presentiment,--an inexplicable power, but a real one,--which our
passions find accommodating, like a flatterer who, among his many lies,
does sometimes tell the truth.

III. A DAY WITHOUT A MORROW

The preceding events of this history having been greatly influenced by
the formation of the regions in which they happened, it is desirable
to give a minute description of them, without which the closing scenes
might be