"Troubled! and what about? The enemy is in full retreat. Only just now, Frantz Materne, whom I had sent to reconnoitre, and all the scouts from Piorette, from Jerôme, and from Labarbe, have come to tell me that the Germans are returning to Mutzig. Old Materne and Kasper, after helping to remove the dead, were informed at Grandfontaine that there was nothing to be seen of them on the side of Saint Blaize-la-Roche. All this proves that our Spanish dragoons gave the enemy a warm reception on the road to Senones, and that they were in fear of having their retreat cut off by Schirmeck. I cannot see, therefore, Catherine, what it is you are tormenting yourself about." And as Hullin regarded her with a questioning look, "You will laugh at me again," said she: "I have had a dream." "A dream?" "Yes, the same that I had at the farm of Bois-des-Chênes." Then, growing excited, she went on in almost an angry tone: "You may say what you like, Jean-Claude; but a great danger threatens us. Yes, yes, all this, in your opinion, has not a shadow of common sense. Moreover, this was not a dream; it was all like an old story coming back to your mind; something that you see again in your sleep, and that you recognise again. Listen. We were, as to-day, after a great victory, somewhere, I don't know where, in a sort of great wooden barrack, with heavy rafters across, and palings round it. We were not in fear of anything; all the faces that I saw, I knew; you were there, and Marc Divès, and many others, old people dead long ago; my father, and old Hugh Rochart, of the Harberg, uncle of the one who has just died, all wearing gaberdines of thick grey cloth, long beards, and bare-necked. We had just won a similar victory, and we were drinking out of a large red earthen pot, when suddenly a cry was raised: "The enemy is returning!" and Yégof, on horseback, with his long beard, his pointed crown, a hatchet in his hand, his eyes glaring like those of a wolf, appeared before me in the darkness of the night. I rush upon him with a stake--he awaits me; and from that moment I see nothing more; only I feel a terrible pain in my neck, a gust of cold wind passes over my face, and it seems to me as if my head were dangling at the end of a cord. It was that miscreant Yégof who had hung my head at his saddle, and was galloping away!" continued the old farm-mistress, in such a tone of conviction that it made Hullin shudder. [Illustration: "PASTOR SAUMAIZE READ THE PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD."] There was a few moments' silence; then Jean-Claude, recovering from his stupefied inaction, replied: "It was a dream. I myself have such dreams sometimes. Yesterday you were disturbed, agitated--all that noise, those shouts."