which the father too late realized, in a manner befitting her station, and to provide for her marriage with a proper portion, as if she had been his own daughter. The Marquis had never married himself, lacking the means to support his rank, and it was probable that he never would marry. 

 The Marquis was at first minded to refuse the bequest and to disregard the appeal, but an old retainer of the family, none other than Jean Marteau, the elder, complying with Count Robert's dying wish, had taken the young Countess Laure across the channel, and had quietly left her in her uncle's care, he himself coming back to act as steward or agent for the remaining acres of the shrunken Aumenier domain; for the Marquis, having chosen a course and walked in it for so many years, was not minded even for the sake of being once more the lord of Aumenier to go back to France, since the return involved the recognition of the powers that were. 

 Old Jean Marteau lived in his modest house between the village and the château. And the château had been closed for the intervening time. Young Jean Marteau, plodding along the familiar way, after a day full of striking adventure and fraught with important news, instantly noticed the light coming through the half moons in the shutters over the windows of the château, as he came around a brow of the hill and overlooked the village, the lake and the castle in the clearing. The village was as dark as the château was light. 

 Marteau was ineffably weary. He had been without sleep for thirty-six hours, he had ridden twenty leagues and walked—Heaven only knew how many miles in addition. He had extricated himself from desperate situations only by his courage, daring, and, in one or two cases, by downright fighting, rendered necessary by his determination to acquire accurate information for the Emperor. He had profited, not only by his instruction in the military school, but by his campaigning, and he now carried in his mind a disposition of the Russian forces which would be of the utmost value to the Emperor. 

 The need of some rest, however, was absolute. Marmont's troops, starting out at the same time he had taken his departure, would barely have reached Sézanne by this time, so much more slowly did an army move than a single person. The Emperor, who had intimated that he would remain at Nogent until the next day, would scarcely undertake the march before morning. Aumenier lay off to the northwest of Sézanne, distant a few miles. If the young aide could find something to eat and get a few hours' sleep, he could be at Sézanne before the 

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