ew out of the shadows and came towards her. It was Madame
Degardy. She had seen the sobbing figure inside the tent, but, with the
occasional wisdom of the foolish of this world, she had not been less
considerate than the children of light.

With brusque, kindly taps of her stick, she drove the girl to her own
tent, and bade her sleep: but sleep was not for Elise that night; and
in the grey dawn, while yet no one was stirring in the camp, she passed
slowly down the valley to her home.

Madame Chalice was greatly troubled also. Valmond's life was saved. In
three days he was on his feet, eager and ardent again, and preparing to
go to the village; but what would the end of it all be? She knew of De
la Riviere's intentions, and she foresaw a crisis. If Valmond were in
very truth a Napoleon, all might be well, though this crusade must close
here. If he were an impostor, things would go cruelly hard with him.
Impostor? Strange how, in spite of all evidence against him, she still
felt a vital sureness in him somewhere; a radical reality, a convincing
quality of presence. At times he seemed like an actor playing his own
character. She could never quite get rid of that feeling.

In her anxiety--for she was in the affair for good or ill--she went
again to Monsieur Garon.

"You believe in Monsieur Valmond, dear avocat?" she asked.

The little man looked at her admiringly, though his admiration was a
quaint, Arcadian thing; and, perching his head on one side abstractedly,
he answered:

"Ah, yes, ah, yes! Such candour! He is the son of Napoleon and a certain
princess, born after Napoleon's fall, not long before his death."

"Then, of course, Monsieur Valmond is really nameless?" she asked.

"Ah, there is the point--the only point; but His Excellency can clear up
all that, and will do so in good time, he says. He maintains that France
will accept him."

"But the Government here, will they put him down? proceed against him?
Can they?"

"Ah, yes, I fear they can proceed against him. He may recruit men, but
he may not drill and conspire, you see. Yet"--the old man smiled, as
though at some distant and pleasing prospect "the cause is a great one;
it is great. Ah, madame, dear madame"--he got to his feet and stepped
into the middle of the floor--"he has the true Napoleonic spirit. He
loves it all. At the very first, it seemed as if he were going to be a
little ridiculous; now it is as if there was but one thing for him--love
of