“Only one word more,” said Ivan. “You wish to know how _I_ came by that,” again indicating the handkerchief. “My friend Michael treasured it carefully as a souvenir, and when I was wounded the other night, he used it to bind the wound. Knowing how he prizes it, I was careful to have it washed, and kept it by me to give him when he comes to see me. Now it is better in your hands.” Here one of the surgeons, who for some time had been hovering uneasily about the group, interposed and courteously requested the visitors to withdraw. He said, as he attended them to the door, “Pardon me, ladies, for interrupting your conversation, but I must take care of my patient, who will be in a high fever to-night if he excites himself any further. Indeed, I fear mischief has been done already--not by _you_, ladies,” he added with a bow, “but by one of his comrades, who came to him this morning full of yesterday’s triumphal entry into the city.” “I hope,” Madame de Talmont contrived to say, in spite of her extreme agitation,--“I hope he is not severely wounded?” “Severely, but not dangerously,” was the answer. “He is one of the finest young men we have, madame: an ensign in the Emperor’s Chevalier Guard, and already very favourably noticed by his Imperial Majesty.--Adieu, madame and mademoiselle: we shall be happy to see you another day.” CHAPTER XXVII. RECOGNITIONS. “There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends.” “It is enough: my son is yet alive; I shall see him before I die.” These were the first words Madame de Talmont found voice to falter, as, leaning heavily on the arm of Clémence, she traversed the short distance between the hospital and the house where they dwelt. The unutterable joy and thankfulness that filled the soul of Clémence was not unmixed with fear. With the speechless, agonizing dread of a loving heart, she trembled for the treasure left her still. If, after this re-awakening of their hopes, the only tidings that had to reach them were of a nameless grave at Vilna, how could her mother bear the blow? Surely, had he recovered, Henri would have written to them ere this. She could not help concluding, from the young Russian’s narrative, that he had met with sufficient kindness in the house of his captivity to have rendered it easy for him to do so. But she could not bear to communicate her misgivings. She led her mother to the pleasant room they shared together, and persuaded her to lie down and rest, taking upon herself the task of relating what they had heard to La Tante, as they both called Madame de Salgues.