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you would be quite safe, without doing anything to deserve eternal life. And, of course, that cannot be right. I am afraid it is only some of the false teaching of the Protestants. But, O Renée, I wish it were true. Those words, Come unto me, come unto me,' ring like sweet music in my ears; and my heart seems as if it must answer, 'Lord, I come, I come.' It may be a delusion of the Evil One. May the blessed Mother keep our Léon, Renée, from the snare. I must ask Father Delille about it."

She did so, and the sophistries of human religiousness were brought to bear upon the simplicity that is in Christ, and the timid, fainting spirit led blindfold away from the pure waters of the Fountain of life. We were strictly enjoined, on peril of our souls, not to meddle with the Word of God, which, Father Delille told usO sad perversion of truth!—was "a two-edged sword," wounding and bringing death to all unskilled hands that dared to wield it. This, he said, was God's own testimony concerning his Word; and it was more in accordance with the view we had been taught to take of God and his Word, so we received it as such. To Nina and me and the rest of us it signified little then; our hearts and minds were full of other things; but the wistful look on my dear mother's face was afterwards sadder and more constant.

Our anxiety for Léon had diminished; the unreasoning confidence begotten by familiarity with escaped dangers came over us, and we were all influenced by the sanguine tone of the public papers and of society in general. Partly owing to the uncertainty of his own movements, and partly to the confusion that prevailed at that time in all official departments, Léon had not received any letters from us since he left home. This was a source of regret to us all; of bitter but carefully hidden pain to Nina. Her lip would quiver and her cheek pale whenever it was alluded to. I knew the reason. Neither the little note, which she had given me open to enclose to him, in which, with childlike simplicity, she had asked forgiveness for the impatience and unkindness she so much regretted having shown that last night, or the explanations and excuses she well knew I should give, would have been -seen by him.

Ah, knowing what bitter fruit may spring from seeds heedlessly sown by careless hands in one unguarded moment or hour, we may well watch and weigh our words and deeds. Life is all too short, human love too fragile and too precious, for us to trifle, while it is yet our own, with its fleeting bloom.

CHAPTER IX.

SEDAN.

A name at which the world grew pale."

JOHNSON.

"Oh, the silence that came next, the patience and long aching!" JEAN INGELOW,

How shall my feeble pen depict the story of that bright autumn day in Paris, when the name that shall stand a warning beacon over the tide of time through all years to come, was borne from lip to lip in her streets? SEDAN!

ness.

Well might men, stunned and appalled by the completeness of the catastrophe, wreathe their pale lips with scornful smiles, and fiercely charge the authors of such a report with lying and madBut it was true, and truth strikes home at last. The hour came when incredulity gave place to the rage of impassioned belief. Paris has gone mad before with less cause. The banner of France lowered before the foe, her imperial diadem in the dust, the sword of her sovereign at the feet of his victorious adversary, her honour tarnished, her glory departed, her name a byword and scorn among the nations, her brave soldiers betrayeddeceived-sacrificed hemmed like deer in a posi tion into which the folly and incapacity of their officers had led them, in which resistance was impracticable, and battle massacre. An emperor, an army, a fortress-one day the bulwark of France, the next the spoil of the conqueror! One day the hope of a generous and too-confiding nation, the next its shame and execration!

But the dark details of that day, so fatal for France, on which the death-knell of an empire was sounded, belong to the page of history, not to these simple records of a few human lives that went on amidst them. The historian will tell how the day that saw France without an emperor and without an army, saw her, too, high of heart and hope, rising phoenix-like from her own ashes,

strong to avenge, patient to endure, haughty in her humiliation. He will say too, perhaps, that it might have been better for her had she ceased to carry on the fatal struggle begun by the illfated man who for twenty long years had been her master; whom three times, by her own free will, she had chosen as such; whose broken yoke she cast from her with such a passion of abhorrence and contempt. And I think he would be right. But looking back, as I do, through the dreary vista of the war-path, strewn with the wrecks of so many lives and homes, could I, woman, judge otherwise? Not now, certainly, nor I think ever. So I will leave all this for wiser heads, and calmer hearts, and abler pens. They will tell how, on the 4th of September, two days after the surrender of Sedan, a revolution took place in Paris, the Emperor was deposed, the republic declared, a provisional government for the defence of Paris, with General Trochu at its head, appointed, and energetic measures at once commenced for the defence of the city.

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They will tell, too, how a deputation from the old ministry waited upon the Empress at the Tuileries palace, and, placing before her a paper ready drawn up, informed her that all hope for her and hers was over, her husband a captive, her son a fugitive, herself the object of a people's hatred and indignation! And how the trembling hand of the unhappy lady signed the document, how she gazed once more from the windows of her palace-home-hers no longer-and then went forth-she, the gay, beautiful, brilliant Eugénie, the star of her own and other courts for eighteen years of splendid prosperity-on foot and a fugitive amongst an angry and frantic crowd, escaping from her own fair capital, the scene of so many pomps and pageants-ay, of so many hopes and fears, so many joys and sorrows-by assuming the lowly guise of a Norman peasant, and reaching at last, a lonely, sorrow-stricken exile, the shores she had last landed on amidst the pride of imperial state.

the name under which they had trembled and cringed became a byword and a taunt, replaced by contemptuous terms full of bitter meaning. How the fair streets, and broad boulevards, and stately edifices, which owed their existence to Napoleon III., rang with voices hoarse with fierce hatred, shouting, "A bas Badinguet;" a soubriquet given to the fallen monarch in scornful allusion to his flight from the fortress of Ham, in the dress of a workman bearing that name. Yes; I will leave this for others to relate, and go back to the aching hearts of our own sorrow-stricken home.

Where was Léon? Ah! that was the question kept, for the most part, by each, for the sake of the other, within the pale, grief-set lips, but echoing ever in the depth of each burdened, loving heart.

And that question met no answer. For in the overwhelming disaster of a nation there was little reck of individual anxiety and sorrow by those in power; in the wild excitement and confusion that prevailed in council and camp little place but for one thought-the defence of the queenly city, on which the enemy was marching unfettered, unchecked, passing disdainfully by, or investing with small detachments of his vast hosts, the fortresses on which we had counted so much.

So still we asked, "Where was Léon?" Unanswered, uncheered. Was he, our noble gallant soldier, a captive in a foreign and hostile land, or stretched on a bed of pain and weakness in hospital or ambulance, with no familiar face to bend over him, no loving hand to minister to his wants; or, like poor Henri de l'Orme, lying cold in a soldier's blood-stained grave? O the keen, sharp agony of suspense of those first days, while yet a chance remained of tidings reaching us! O the deep, dull anguish of waiting through long weary months when that chance was past, and our fears mocked our hopes! What words may tell it out?

At first, we hoped against hope that his regiThey will tell, too, how the passionate pain of ment had not been amongst those that had fought the people vented itself in the senseless disfigure- and surrendered at Sedan. But before the melanment of buildings, and windows, and whatever choly remnants of the brilliant army that had bore the emblem of the hated government, and left Paris returned, broken and shattered like the the then still more hated man under whose sway hopes that had followed it, that uncertainty, at France had been led smiling to her doom; how | least, was set at rest. In one of those splendid

charges of heroic despair, in which the flower of | had for the remorseful sorrow that she evidently the French cavalry had been scattered-like felt. But that night, the sight of her pale, mournspring-blossoms by a storm-wind- before the ful face haunted me after I had bidden her gooddeadly blast of the German artillery, Léon's regi- night, and I could not rest. Of course all noticed ment had nobly played its part. Not many of her worn looks, but her manner was so calm and that devoted band rode back out of the smoke quiet, she spoke so composedly of Léon,—with that veiled the slopes up which they had so gal- grave concern indeed, but with no outward agitalantly dashed-slopes green and smooth, and fair tion,-that it is no wonder all, but my mother with ferns and flowers, ere the battle smoke veiled and myself, ascribed their cause to bodily indisthem; crimsoned, and ghastly, and death-strewn position. when that veil was lifted again. This, at least, we knew. But this was all.

And when the dark story was told of the miseries, and horrors, and humiliations to which the prisoners were subjected by their exulting captors, our tortured hearts almost turned rather to the grave's unbroken rest. There, at least, our beloved one's generous spirit would not be tormented by dishonour and chains. But the love of life! What, save Faith's anchor within the veil, can overcome it in these loving, sinful, sorrowing hearts of ours? For ourselves and for those who are our dearer selves. So we clung | tenaciously, desperately, with hearts faint and weary with the sickness of hope deferred, to the belief that our Léon was yet of us. Then, and through the weary months that followed.

My mother bowed her head meekly as before a blow waited and watched for; but she drooped as one who had received a mortal wound.

And Nina! Ah! poor Nina, upon her the blow fell heaviest. We had parted from him, against whose name was written "Missing," with fond embraces, and tender tears, and loving words -with whispered prayers and blessings; she with heartless levity, and cruel scorn, and unjust reproaches. The last looks and words we had given him were of affection and hope--hers, of bitterness and passion. And he had never known how she regretted them!

My heart ached for the unhappy child, as she went about with white fixed face, mechanically performing all the customary routine of ordinary life, in the long anxious days of that first week in September. But not till the night on which Augustine brought in the copy of the Journel Officiel, in which Léon's regiment was named as one that had taken part in the last desperate struggle, did I fully know how great a cause she

I tried to sleep that night, but in vain, and at last yielded to the impulse that had been upon me from the time I had left Nina. Wrapping myself in my dressing-gown, I stole softly through the room in which my mother was sleeping quietly, as was usual with her till the early morning hours. Nina was not in the habit of locking her door, and I told myself I would only go quietly in and see if she were sleeping; if not, I would excuse my midnight visit under the plea of anxiety about her pale looks. I had little fear of a rebuff; she had been gentle enough of late, poor child.

Very cautiously I turned the handle of the door, which opened noiselessly. It was a bright moonlight night, and the room was flooded with silver light. My eye rested first upon Nina's empty bed, then upon a white figure crouching on the floor by the window. So silently had the door opened that she did not hear it, even in the midnight stillness. She sat with her brow resting against the glass, her dark hair falling loosely around her, but with her day-dress untouched. Fearing to startle her, I pushed a chair as I crossed the floor towards her, but she did not Then I spoke her name. She turned her head and looked up in my face, with such a look of agony in the large mournful eyes, and on the fair face which gleamed snow-white in the pale brightness of the moonbeams.

move.

"Nina," I said, kneeling beside her "Nina, my poor darling, what is it?"

She turned towards me, looked 'full into my face for a moment, then laid her head on my breast with the wailing cry, "O Renée, Renée!" My tears fell thick and fast on the bright young head bowed so low with its weight of sorrow. But none dimmed the calm steady eyes that looked despairingly up into the clear bright sky.

"My Nina," I said at last, " you must not grieve so terribly. Our Léon may yet be restored to us."

ledged purpose of giving him pain, but out of the strong love of teasing and testing the endurance of those who loved her, only the more

To you, yes,” she said slowly and with the fully developed by his too great readiness to same fixed look; "to me never."

"Nina, what do you mean? Are you ill?" I exclaimed in terror at her strange looks and voice.

“Ill! yes—at heart. O Renée!" she moaned, "how shall I bear it, how shall I bear to live out my life?"

“Nina, dearest, I cannot understand you. If Léon is spared to us, as we may at least hope he is, why do you say he would not be restored to you?" O Nina, you do not know how he loves you!"

"I know how he did love me," she said; "how he would have loved me always but for mv own wicked folly."

"But, Nina, if Léon yet lives, wherever he may be, he loves you still nothing but death could take his love from you."

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"There are things worse than death," she said in the same decided, bitter tone. 'Renée, I must tell you all. The memory of that last night has been eating like fire into my heart and brain ever since Léon went away. No; loose me-do not touch me while I tell you; you will hate me when I have done, or despise me as he does now, if indeed he lives." And she shook herself free from my encircling arms, and sat upright gazing out into the night, while, in sentences short and broken with pain, she unburdened her heart of the secret that had preyed upon it so long.

excuse and forget all her unkindness when she smiled upon him once more. She had often wept, she said, in the quiet of her own room, when she remembered how she had wounded and slighted him during the day, and resolved not to do so again. But she knew of no higher strength than her own, poor child-the power of old habit was too strong upon her-and the very pain she felt at his approaching departure made her more wayward. He should not think she cared, she told herself, even when her foolish little heart sank at the thought of the dangers into which he was going. And that last evening, when he told her of his love, she cast it from her, spurned it, denied her own for him.

It happened thus. After my mother had retired that evening, she and Léon had been left in the drawing-room alone. He alluded, after a time, to his coming absence, and rejoiced at her being at home that evening, possibly his last with us. She immediately spoke of her intended visit to Madame de Salmy next day. Very gently and delicately he begged her not to go, for his sake and for her own. As I have before said, he disliked and distrusted that lady. Nina's pride at once took fire, though, as she afterwards saw too plainly, there was nothing in Léon's words to warrant it, and certainly no assumption of a guardian's authority; it was mainly for his own sake he asked her to remain. Passionately she questioned his right to interfere with her movements; and then--not wisely, perhaps, but from the fulness of his noble, tender heart-Léon told her of his love. And she, yielding to a reckless impulse of temper, rejected it, scorned it, and left the room with light words of bitter mockery.

I am not going to record here the sacred confidences of that hour in the very words poor Nina used in the passionate anguish of her bitter self-reproach. It is enough to say that the capricious, wilful temper fostered in her character during the petted, unrestrained childhood, unchecked by herself in her thoughtless, wayward girlhood, had led her that night to a pitch of folly and cruelty which would only too probably cast a dark shadow over her whole life. She had long known how great was her power over Léon, and delighted to exercise it, until it had become a habit with her to do so on almost every opportunity; not with the deliberate and acknow-it to my heart. I could not speak; what com

"Now, Renée, hate me if you will," she said, when her painful story was finished; "you cannot hate me more than I loathe and despise myself. Oh! why, why did I do it? Why, when I had done it, did I let him go without a word of forgiveness?" she moaned, as I drew her slight figure back into my arms, and pressed

fort that I could give could possibly soothe such pain as hers?-for the arrow that was rankling in her heart was a poisoned one. Love may soothe sorrow, tenderness alleviate suffering, sympathy soften bereavement; but under what earthly name is a balm found for remorse?

At last I said, "Nina, dearest, I too have a confession to make-I too have a bitter, unavailing regret pressing heavily on my heart."

"You, Renée !" she said, looking up searchingly into my face.

"Yes. Nina, the morning after-after what you have told me of-before you went to Meudon, would you not have given anything to have remained at home?"

"Ah! yes, then; but it was too late."

"Not quite. O Nina, the expression of your eyes when I went to hasten your preparations, and when you left the room with the De Salmys, has haunted me ever since."

She half smiled. "Ah, Renée, you have so often saved me from the consequences of some wilful freak I have been bent on following! I know that morning I had a wild, vague hope you might save me even then from paining Léon more than I had done."

Madame de Salmy's, when he went, that I grieve over. That is as nothing to the rest-nothing, nothing. Oh, those cruel, mocking words! the last I spoke to him-the last! Ah, Renée, how often have you told me that a time might come when penitence, and tears, and caresses would be in vain, when some reckless word or wilful deed, spoken or done in thoughtless levity, would bear bitter, bitter fruit! But I would not heed you. And now all my love, and regrets, and tears are but as roses and spring rain upon the grave of a buried hope-all in vain for what lies beneath it. Well, never was punishment more deserved.”

"But, Nina dearest, our hope is strong and living, not buried. Léon may even now be safe and unharmed in Germany. Many think the war will soon be over, and then we shall have him back, and all will be set right."

She shook her head with a despairing look. Suddenly I thought of Léon's last message to her, and I gave it. In her hysterical distress the day after his departure, I had not ventured to give it all; but now was, I felt, the time. “Nina,” I said solemnly, "listen to me. I have a message from Léon, to be given you if he fell. He would wish it given now. His last words to me were:

"And so I might have done, Nina-I might,Say farewell for me to Nina, Renée, and tell but I did not. Nay, do not interrupt me. I her to forget what passed the other night, as have helped to bring this sorrow on you, my I shall. And if I should fall, tell her I loved poor darling. A few loving, persuasive words to her to the last. Nothing can change that. You you, a few explanations and apologies to Madame will care for and protect her, whatever may hapde Salmy, and you would have remained at home. pen, for my sake.' His last thoughts were of Léon and you would have met again—you would you, Nina-of you, not of your fault. 0 Nina, have parted heart to heart. But I had seen his do not doubt the strength and tenderness of his pain the night before, my spirit was chafed and love! Trust him; do not wrong his true, noble angry, and I would not speak these words; heart by doubting him. If he lives, wherever he would not till it was too late. So, Nina, your may be, he loves you still; if not, his last earthly sorrow is my sorrow, your remorse mine too. thoughts were of you, I know." Darling, do not seek to bear it alone, as though it were unshared. Let us bear it together."

She pressed her cold lips to my face. "Dear Renée, you are not to blame. Had you asked me to stay, as perhaps I hoped you would have done, I might have acted just the same. I do not know. However that may be, I only am to blame. How could you think that any reasoning or persuasion would avail with one so wilful as I? No, Renée, you must not think thus. And it is not my being away, even at

She burst into tears. For a long time she wept unrestrainedly, while I spoke of Léon, of the words he had spoken that unhappy evening; how he had defended and excused her, and believed in her in spite of all. Faster and heavier fell her tears; but I knew they would relieve her overburdened heart, and did not seek to check them, until nature was utterly exhausted. Then she let me undress her like a child, and settle her in her bed. Only once she spoke, and then | she said, "If he had only known that I loved

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