window
opening on a dark corner of the fortifications where they joined the
rock terrace of the Promenade, "put everything in order. As for the
salon, you can leave that as it is," she added, with a smile which women
reserve for their nearest friends, the delicate sentiment of which men
seldom understand.

"Ah! how sweet you are!" exclaimed the little maid.

"A lover is our beauty--foolish women that we are!" she replied gaily.

Francine left her lying on the ottoman and went away convinced
that, whether her mistress were loved or not, she would never betray
Montauran.

* * * * *

"Are you sure of what you are telling me, old woman?" Hulot was saying
to Barbette, who had sought him out as soon as she had reached Fougeres.

"Have you got eyes? Look at the rocks of Saint-Sulpice, there, my good
man, to the right of Saint-Leonard."

Corentin, who was with Hulot, looked towards the summit in the direction
pointed out by Barbette, and, as the fog was beginning to lift, he could
see with some distinctness the column of white smoke the woman told of.

"But when is he coming, old woman?--to-night, or this evening?"

"My good man," said Barbette, "I don't know."

"Why do you betray your own side?" said Hulot, quickly, having drawn her
out of hearing of Corentin.

"Ah! general, see my boy's foot--that's washed in the blood of my man,
whom the Chouans have killed like a calf, to punish him for the few
words you got out of me the other day when I was working in the fields.
Take my boy, for you've deprived him of his father and his mother; make
a Blue of him, my good man, teach him to kill Chouans. Here, there's two
hundred crowns,--keep them for him; if he is careful, they'll last him
long, for it took his father twelve years to lay them by."

Hulot looked with amazement at the pale and withered woman, whose eyes
were dry.

"But you, mother," he said, "what will become of you? you had better
keep the money."

"I?" she replied, shaking her head sadly. "I don't need anything in this
world. You might bolt me into that highest tower over there" (pointing
to the battlements of the castle) "and the Chouans would contrive to
come and kill me."

She kissed her boy with an awful expression of grief, looked at him,
wiped away her tears, looked at him again, and disappeared.

"Commandant," said Corentin, "this is an occasion when two heads are
better than one. We know all, and yet we know nothi