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“Yes, I have had you in mind all along,” Henriette hesitatingly replied. “I thought you might be willing to assist me with your advice, perhaps with something more substantial–”

The young woman laughed merrily. “You little goose, I’ll have your uncle released inside three days. Don’t you know that I have a Prussian captain here in the house who stands ready to obey my every order? Understand, he can refuse me nothing!” And she laughed more heartily than ever, in the giddy, thoughtless triumph of her coquettish nature, holding in her own and patting the hands of her friend, who was so uncomfortable that she could not find words in which to express her thanks, horrified by the avowal that was implied in what she had just heard. But how to account for such serenity, such childlike gayety? “Leave it to me; I’ll send you home to-night with a mind at rest.”

When they passed into the dining room Henriette was struck by Edmond’s delicate beauty, never having seen him before. She eyed him with the pleasure she would have felt in looking at a pretty toy. Could it be possible that that boy had served in the army? and how could they have been so cruel as to break his arm? The story of his gallantry in the field made him even more interesting still, and Delaherche, who had received Henriette with the cordiality of a man to whom the sight of a new face is a godsend, while the servants were handing round the cutlets and the potatoes cooked in their jackets, never seemed to tire of eulogizing his secretary, who was as industrious and well behaved as he was handsome. They made a very pleasant and homelike picture, the four, thus seated around the bright table in the snug, warm dining room.

“So you want us to interest ourselves in Father Fouchard’s case, and it’s to that we owe the pleasure of your visit, eh?” said the manufacturer. “I’m extremely sorry that I have to go away to-night, but my wife will set things straight for you in a jiffy; there’s no resisting her, she has only to ask for a thing to get it.” He laughed as he concluded his speech, which was uttered in perfect simplicity of soul, evidently pleased and flattered that his wife possessed such influence, in which he shone with a kind of reflected glory. Then turning suddenly to her: “By the way, my dear, has Edmond told you of his great discovery?”

“No; what discovery?” asked Gilberte, turning her pretty caressing eyes full on the young sergeant.

The cherub blushed whenever a woman looked at him in that way, as if the exquisiteness of his sensations was too much for him. “It’s nothing, madame; only a bit of old lace; I heard you saying the other day you wanted some to put on your mauve peignoir. I happened yesterday to come across five yards of old Bruges point, something really handsome and very cheap. The woman will be here presently to show it to you.”

She could have kissed him, so delighted was she. “Oh, how nice of you! You shall have your reward.”

Then, while a terrine of foie-gras, purchased in Belgium, was being served, the conversation took another turn; dwelling for an instant on the quantities of fish that were dying of poison in the Meuse, and finally coming around to the subject of the pestilence that menaced Sedan when there should be a thaw. Even as early as November, there had been several cases of disease of an epidemic character. Six thousand francs had been expended after the battle in cleansing the city and collecting and burning clothing, knapsacks, haversacks, all the debris that was capable of harboring infection; but, for all that, the surrounding fields continued to exhale sickening odors whenever there came a day or two of warmer weather, so replete were they with half-buried corpses, covered only with a few inches of loose earth. In every direction the ground was dotted with graves; the soil cracked and split in obedience to the forces acting beneath its surface, and from the fissures thus formed the gases of putrefaction issued to poison the living. In those more recent days, moreover, another center of contamination had been discovered, the Meuse, although there had already been removed from it the bodies of more than twelve hundred dead horses. It was generally believed that there were no more human remains left in the stream, until, one day, a garde champetre, looking attentively down into the water where it was some six feet deep, discovered some objects glimmering at the bottom, that at first he took for stones; but they proved to be corpses of men, that had been mutilated in such a manner as to prevent the gas from accumulating in the cavities of the body and hence had been kept from rising to the surface. For near four months they had been lying there in the water among the eel-grass. When grappled for the irons brought them up in fragments, a head, an arm, or a leg at a time; at times the force of the current would suffice to detach a hand or foot and send it rolling down the stream. Great bubbles of gas rose to the surface and burst, still further empoisoning the air.