“Yes,” said she, “but do not misunderstand me. I do not love you. I never shall love you, Réné,” continued she, looking me full in the face. “I feel instinctively that I have need of your friendship. Why I should implore it, how it can be useful to me, I know not; but still I feel sure I shall have recourse to it some day; and if you are away from me, Réné, on that day, whose help shall I implore? If you are near to me, I can rely on you; can I not? Again I say to you, as I wrote once before, I am truly unhappy.” She took her arm from mine, hid her face in her hand, and I could see by the heaving of her bosom that she was weeping. “Mademoiselle Sophie!” said I. “Leave me, my friend—leave me. I do not like to weep before you, and I feel that I must weep.” And, with one hand, she made me a sign to go. I obeyed. She sat down by the side of a little brook, which fell into the Brésme, and taking off her hat, which she placed by her side, began to pluck flowers, and throw them into the water. Sixty years have passed since that day, and I fancy that I can still see the poor child with her golden hair floating in the breeze, the tears coursing down her cheeks, throwing the flowers into the current of the Brésme, which would carry them to the Aisne, the Aisne to the Oise, the Oise to the Seine, and the Seine to the sea. After about an hour had passed, she got up silently, came towards me, and smilingly took my arm. We retraced our steps to my uncle’s house. We had scarcely arrived, when we heard the sound of wheels. It was Father Gerbaut’s carriage. Sophie, who had not spoken one word all the way home, seized my hand. “Réné,” she said, “do not forget that you have given me your word; I trust you.” “Mademoiselle Sophie,” said I, pressing her hand to my heart, “one call alone can be stronger than yours—that of my country.” M. Gerbaut stayed about an hour to rest his horse, and then, with Sophie, mounted into his vehicle. The poor girl waved her hand. Father Gerbaut cried “Farewell!” and the carriage disappeared behind a clump of trees, which hid the road to Meuvilly. I returned to where Sophie had been sitting down; I picked up the flowers she had let fall, and placed them in my little portfolio, together with the letter which she had written to me at Varennes, and in which she had poured forth all her soul. CHAPTER XIII. THE PEOPLE IN COUNCIL. On the morrow, the ninth of July, ’90, we were _en route_ at daybreak, drums beating in front of us, to assist in the celebration of the grand fête of the general federation. Father Descharmes embraced me, with an expression of sorrow which wounded me to the heart. “Perhaps you youngsters are in the right,” said he, “and we old men are in the wrong. But what will you, my child. One cannot give up in two days the creed of sixty years.” “I know not what may come of all this, but I hope that my eyes will be closed in death before it does come.”