"This was in the summer of 1790, about a year after the taking of the Bastille. All through the autumn days that followed, the Germain family and others waited eagerly for further news from Paris. At last came again a few hurried words to Madame Germain from the Countess, referring to other letters sent by the post which had never been received at Valmont. She had found it impossible, she said, to carry out her plan of returning home that last summer. The Marquis had opposed it; he was so sure that things were calming down, and he objected to any member of his family leaving Paris. `So again,' wrote the poor lady, `Edmee and I must take patience. But surely _next_ summer, the fourth since our absence, will see us in our own dear home.' "Next summer! Preceded by a severe winter, which saw sufferings such as Valmont had never known before--for the demands on Collet for money became more and more peremptory, and though the cure and Germain had written to the Countess a full account of the state of things, no notice had been taken of it, and they began to fear she had never received their letter--`next summer' brought no better state of things. The king and his family were now, to all intents and purposes, prisoners in the hands of their people; the few wiser and cooler-headed men in the government were overruled; great numbers of the better classes had left their unhappy country; of those whom obstinacy, in some cases poverty, caused to remain, till too late to get away, the fate became daily more uncertain. And among these there was every reason to fear were Edmee de Valmont and her mother! "`If they had left the country, I feel sure they would have found some means of letting us know,' said Madame Germain, shaking her head, for the long anxiety and uncertainty had lessened her hopefulness. And just as her husband and son, after discussing for perhaps the hundredth time this sad state of things, had arrived at the conclusion that _something_ must be done, _some_ step they must and would take, there came again suddenly, and in an unexpected way, news of the two so dear to them. "It came in the shape of a very feeble and very old man, who, looking more dead than alive, dragged himself one evening, late in the month of September, in the year I have now reached in my narrative, that of 1792, to the door of the forester's cottage, and there, half-fainting on the threshold, asked in a broken voice for Germain or his wife. They did not know him in the least--how could they, in this wretched, dust-and-mud-covered old beggar, whose white beard hung neglectedly, whose feet were almost shoeless, whose poor old hands trembled with nervous weakness, have recognised the carefully-attired, respectable, nay stately Ludovic, who had driven away on the box of the travelling chariot, so proud to follow his ladies to the end of the world, had they bidden him? His devotion had cost him dear, poor old man, and as he feebly murmured--