"Yes! I am safe enough," replied St. Genis. "It is only my head that aches: and Brussels is not far." Then he paused a moment ere he started to go--with lips set tight and looking down on Bobby, whose pale face had taken on an ashen hue: "How you must despise me," he said bitterly. But Bobby made no reply: he was just longing to be left alone, whilst the other still seemed inclined to linger. "Would to God," Maurice said with a sigh, "that M. le Comte heard the evil news from other lips than mine." "Evil news?" And Bobby, whom semi-consciousness was already taking off once more to the land of visions and of dreams--was brought back to reality--as if with a sudden jerk--with those two preposterous little words. "What evil news?" he asked. "The allied armies have retreated all along the line . . . the Corsican adventurer is victorious . . . our poor King . . ." "Hold your tongue, you young fool," cried Bobby hoarsely. "The Lord help you but I do believe you are about to blaspheme . . ." "But . . ." "The Allied Armies--the British Army, God bless it!--have covered themselves with glory--Napoleon and his Empire have ceased to be. The Grand Army is in full retreat . . . the Prussians are in pursuit. . . . The British have won the day by their pluck and their endurance. . . . Thank God I lived just long enough to see it all, ere I fell . . ." "But when we charged the cuirassiers . . ." began St. Genis, not knowing really if Bobby was raving in delirium, or speaking of what he knew. He wanted to ask further questions, to hear something more before he started for Brussels . . . the only thing which he remembered with absolute certainty was that awful charge of his regiment against the cuirassiers, then the panic and the rout: and he judged the whole issue of the battle by what had happened to a detachment of Brunswickers. And yet, of course--before the charge--he had seen and known all that Bobby told him now. That rush of the Brunswickers and the Dutch down the hillside was only a part of the huge and glorious charge of the whole of the Allied troops against the routed Grand Army of Napoleon. He had neither the physical strength nor the desire to think out all that it would mean to him personally if what Bobby now told him was indeed absolutely true.