"I have frightened the maid and the house is barricaded, but I hope the girl will have sense enough to announce that somebody is at the door." Presently the muffled stamping of manly slippers became audible and Batoche recognized the tread of M. Belmont. "Who is there?" "A friend." "Your name?" Batoche durst not give his name even in a whisper, for the winds of suspicion might bear it to headquarters. "What do you want at this hour?" "Fear nothing. Open the door and I will tell you." "I will not open." M. Belmont was not a timid man, but evidently these precautions had become necessary in the present demoralized condition of the town. Batoche was in a quandary, but his native sagacity soon came to his aid. Putting his mouth close to the key-hole, he sent through it the low bark of the wolf. M. Belmont opened his eyes wide as he heard it, and a sickly smile spread over his face, but he lost no time in turning the lock. Through a very small aperture the stranger glided into the room. "Batoche!" "M. Belmont!" A few whispered words explained everything--the disguise, the motive of the visit and all the rest. M. Belmont recovered his equanimity and led his friend to a front room. "I have no time to lose. I must see him," said Batoche. "He is very ill and now sleeping." "Who is with him?" "Pauline. She never leaves him." "Stay a moment. Roderick Hardinge may be here at any moment. He calls every evening about this hour. He must not meet you." "Never fear. It will be easy to keep out of his sight." The two friends then ascended to the sick room--Pauline's own chamber. On the little bed lay the fine form of the young American soldier, stretched out at full length under snow-white coverlets. The face was drawn down and narrowed, the eyes were sunken, while the fever played in lurid lines about the cheek-bones and ample forehead. The masses of curly hair lay moist upon the pillow. By the dim light of the shaded lamp on the table near by, Cary looked like a corpse, silent, immoveable--how different from the manly figure which Batoche had seen doing battle by his side in the terrible defile of Sault-au-Matelot. Pauline sat in a low chair at the head of the bed, the loveliest picture of sad, suffering beauty. There were dark lines under her eyes that told of long watches, and a slight stoop in her shoulders indicative of weariness against which the generous, loving spirit was struggling. When the stranger entered the apartment with her father, she neither moved from her seat nor made any sign. Her idea was that it was probably a soldier whom Roderick, unable to come himself, had sent to inquire about the invalid. But when the man approached nearer, and M. Belmont, preceding him, whispered something in her ear, she rose with the pressure of both hands upon her throbbing heart. "Batoche!" she exclaimed in a smothered voice. "You are an angel of Providence." "I heard he was ill and I came to see him."