The service was over, and the congregation had filed out of the cathedral. Crystal was one of the last to go. She stood for a long while in the porch looking down with unseeing eyes on the bustle and excitement which went on in the Place down below. Her mind was not here. It was far indeed from the crowd of terror-stricken or gossiping men and women, of wounded soldiers, terrified peasantry and anxious townsfolk that encumbered the precincts of the stately edifice. From the remote distance--out toward the south--came the boom and roar of cannon and musket fire--almost incessant still. There was her heart! there her thoughts! with the brave men who were fighting for their national existence--with the British troops and with their sufferings--and she stood here, staring straight out before her--dry-eyed and pale and small white hands clasped tightly together. The greater part of to-day she had sat by the open window in the shabby drawing-room in the rue du Marais, listening to that awful fusillade, wondering with mind well-nigh bursting with horror and with misery which of those cruel shots which she heard in the dim distance would still for ever the brave and loyal heart that had made so many silent sacrifices for her. And her father, vaguely thinking that she was anxious about Maurice--vaguely wondering that she cared so much--had done his best to try and comfort her: "She need not fear much for Maurice," he had told her as reassuringly as he could--"the Brunswickers were not likely to suffer much. The brunt of the conflict would fall upon the British. Ah! but they would lose very heavily. Wellington had not more than seventy thousand men to put up against the Corsican's troops; and only a hundred and fifty cannon against two hundred and eighty. Yes, the British would probably be annihilated by superior forces: but no doubt the other allies--and the Brunswickers--would come off a great deal better." But Mme. la Duchesse douairière d'Agen offered no such consolation. She contented herself with saying that she was sure in her mind that Maurice would come through quite safely, and that she prayed to God with all her heart and soul that the gallant British troops would not suffer too heavily. Then with her fine, gentle hand she patted Crystal's fair curls which were clinging matted and damp against the young girl's burning forehead. And she stooped and kissed those aching dry blue eyes and whispered quite under her breath so that Crystal could not be sure if she heard correctly: "May God protect him too! He is a brave and a good man!"