"That is what you should have done first thing. The mystery would have been solved at once. Whom did you find?" "No one--absolutely no one. Everything was in good order, as it always is in mademoiselle's room. Her work table and her other little writing table were in their accustomed place, near the dormer window that looks on the garden, and as it was open I peeped out. I saw neither ladder nor cord which could have served anyone either for entry or escape. I looked under the bed, I opened the door of the closet--no one! Then I said to myself--" "Whence it follows, my good Gertrude, that you thought you heard footsteps in my sister's room and that you were mistaken, that's all. Now tell me, how did you find Oliver?" "When I knocked at his door, the young man was sound asleep, for he did not hear me at first." "So much the better. If he sleeps deep it is a happy symptom. His fever has gone." "I asked him through the door how he was, and whether he needed anything. He told me he had lain down after taking his hot drink, and that he had slept till I woke him; that he felt better, and that he hoped to pass a good night. Thereupon he wished me good-even." "Poor boy--may his hope of rest be realized. Tell my wife, Gertrude, that I am going out to the shop, and not to be worried at my absence. I shall come in for supper at ten o'clock as usual." So saying, John passed out of the parlor and went to join his comrades in the smithy. CHAPTER XXIII. TO THE WORKMAN THE TOOL. The factory of implements of war, established by John Lebrenn in his iron works, took the toil of twenty workmen. All--apprentices, old men, young men--vied with one another in patriotic ardor in the accomplishment of their task. They felt that this was no ordinary labor. They were conscious of serving the Republic, and lavished their skill on the arms destined for the patriots at the front. Accordingly, with what eagerness did not these artisans forge, beat, or file the iron, lighted here by a smoky lamp against the wall, there by the reverberating glow of the furnace. The ringing cadence of the hammers on the anvils was often accompanied by the popular songs of the period chanted in chorus by the workmen's sturdy voices. Most oft it was the Marseillaise, the Carmagnole, or the famous _Ca Ira_, whose brief and rapid rythm seemed to beat the "Charge!" Songs and labors both stopped short at the entrance of John Lebrenn. Castillon had notified the shop a few minutes before that 'friend John,' as they cordially called him, was coming to post them on the events of the coming day, and to supply the information of which they had for some time been deprived.