natives and several of the regiment were also killed. There has been no late or authentic news from Dirbal, but the last despatches give the department of war to understand that Sabron himself is among the missing." 

 The Marquise d'Esclignac slowly put down the paper, and rose quickly. She went to the young girl's side and put her arm around her. Miss Redmond covered her face with her hands: 

 "Ma tante, ma tante!" she murmured. 

 "My dear Julia," said the old lady, "there is nothing more uncertain than newspaper reports, especially those that come from the African seat of war. Sit down here, my child." 

 The two women sat together on the long piano-stool. The marquise said: 

 "I followed the fortunes, my dear, of my husband's cousin through the engagement in Tonkin. I know a little what it was."  The girl was immovable. Her aunt felt her rigid by her side.  "I told you," she murmured, "that a soldier's life was a precarious one." 

 Miss Redmond threw away all disguise. 

 "Ma tante," she said in a hard voice. "I love him! You must have known it and seen it. I love him! He is becoming my life." 

 As the marquise looked at the girl's face and saw her trembling lips and her wide eyes, she renounced her ambitions for Julia Redmond. She renounced them with a sigh, but she was a woman of the world, and more than that to a woman. She remained for a moment in silence, holding Julia's hands. 

 She had followed the campaign of her husband's cousin, a young man with an insignificant title whom she had not married. In this moment she relived again the arrival of the evening papers; the despatches, her husband's news of his cousin. As she kissed Julia's cheeks a moisture passed over her own eyes, which for many years had shed no tears. 

 "Courage, my dear," she implored, "we will telegraph at once to the minister of war for news." 

 The girl drew a convulsive breath and turned, and leaning both elbows on the piano keys—perhaps in the very notes whose music in the little song had charmed Sabron—she burst into tears. The marquise rose and passed out of the room to send a man with a despatch to Tarascon. 

 CHAPTER XIII ONE DOG'S DAY 

 

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