“Yes,” she almost whispered, “I saw that you noticed it. Darling, you must not judge me too severely. He is an old friend; I told you all about it at Charleville, long ago, you remember.” Her voice sank lower still; there was something that sounded very like a laugh of satisfaction in her tender tones. “He pleaded so with me yesterday that I would see him just once more. Just think, this morning he is in action; he may be dead by this. How could I refuse him?” It was all so heroic and so charming, the contrast was so delicious between war’s stern reality and tender sentiment; thoughtless as a linnet, she smiled again, notwithstanding her confusion. Never could she have found it in her heart to drive him from her door, when circumstances all were propitious for the interview. “Do you condemn me?” Henriette had listened to her confidences with a very grave face. Such things surprised her, for she could not understand them; it must be that she was constituted differently from other women. Her heart that morning was with her husband, her brother, down there where the battle was raging. How was it possible that anyone could sleep so peacefully and be so gay and cheerful when the loved ones were in peril? “But think of your husband, my dear, and of that poor young man as well. Does not your heart yearn to be with them? You do not reflect that their lifeless forms may be brought in and laid before your eyes at any moment.” Gilberte raised her adorable bare arm before her face to shield her vision from the frightful picture. “O Heaven! what is that you say? It is cruel of you to destroy all the pleasure of my morning in this way. No, no; I won’t think of such things. They are too mournful.”