honour of France and the King.”

She half-carried him to the bed. The flame-red pictures of the night kept shooting through a blackness of pain in his eyes. How tired and weak he was. From far away a trumpet note rang, a drum throbbed, a snatch of revelling song bubbled mockingly up: 

“Et son amour ridicule,
  A fait rire tout Paris, ris, ris.”

“I made a promise,” dropped the soothing words in his ear, “but Monsieur le Vicomte must never betray the secret to Monseigneur and the King. Yet remember, I beg, there is nothing--nothing--I will not do for you if I can serve you, for I am grateful--more grateful than a woman can say.” A cushion was slipped under his neck. Two soft arms enfolded him for a brief second. “The lips, Vicomte” came the caressing chant--“the lips that a king has kissed salute you.” His head rested on her breast. “Adieu!” She had vanished and his numbed senses ebbed away into an enchanted oblivion. The Loire floated at his feet, the autumn trees rustled a perfect pleasantness and peace, and Denise standing beneath the carved mantelpiece with “_Dieu Le Vengeur_” in a scroll of gold above her had him in her forgiving arms.

Ha! What was that? Hoarse voices and cries, the rush of feet, of horses, of waggons, and of guns, the rattle of the drums and the challenge of trumpets. André leaped up, flung the window wide open. The dawn was here, and hark, hark! Those are the silver trumpets of the Chevau-légers de la Garde de la Maison du Roi. The trumpets of the Guard calling as they called at Steinkirk. To horse! to horse!

And what is that away yonder through the pearly mist of the morning out there in the enclosures and coppices dripping in the dew of May? Answering calls and the feverish thud of drums. They are coming--the white-coated Austrian hounds and the red-coated English dogs! They are coming! To horse! to horse! For today we must fight for the honour of France--fight that we may have the play promised to the army by the actresses of the Théâtre Français when Monseigneur the Maréchal de Saxe has won yet another victory for His Majesty, Well-Beloved. Ah, they shall see, those English dogs, what lies in the hearts and swords of the nobles of the Guard. Fontenoy! Neither they nor we will ever forget Fontenoy.

THE dull boom of a gun away on the right greeted André as he flung himself into the saddle, and the trumpets were echoing all along the line from the citadel of Anthoin over the slopes on which the brigaded army lay right up to the forest of Barry 

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