The bugle-call rang softly down the valley, echoed away tenderly in the hills, and was lost in the distance. Roused by the clear call, Elise rose from watching beside Valmond’s couch, and turned towards the door of the tent. The spring of a perfect joy at his safety had been followed by an aching in all her body and a trouble at her heart. Her feet were like lead, her spirit quivered and shrank by turn. The light of the campfires sent a glow through the open doorway upon the face of the sleeper. She leaned over him. The look she gave him seemed to her anxious spirit like a farewell. This man had given her a new life, and out of it had come a new sight. Valmond had escaped death, but in her poor confused way she felt another storm gathering about him. A hundred feelings possessed her; but one thought was master of them all: when trouble drew round him, she must be near him, must be strong to help him, protect him, if need be. Yet a terrible physical weakness was on her. Her limbs trembled, her head ached, her heart throbbed in a sickening way. He stirred in his sleep; a smile passed over his face. She wondered what gave it birth. She knew well it was not for her, that smile. It belonged to his dream of success--when a thousand banners should flaunt in the gardens of the Tuileries. Overcome by a sudden rush of emotion, she fell on her knees at his side, bursting into noiseless sobs, which shook her from head to foot. Every nerve in her body responded to the shock of feeling; she was having her dark hour alone. At last she staggered to her feet and turned to the open door. The tents lay silent in the moonshine, but wayward lights flickered in the sumptuous dusk, and the quiet of the hills hung like a canopy over the bivouac of the little army. No token of misfortune came out of this peaceful encampment, no omen of disaster crossed the long lane of drowsy fires and huge amorous shadows. The sense of doom was in the girl’s own heart, not in this deep cradle of the hills. Now and again a sentinel crossed the misty line of vision, silent, and majestically tall, in the soft haze, which came down from Dalgrothe Mountain and fell like a delicate silver veil before the face of the valley. As she looked, lost in a kind of dream, there floated up from the distant tent the refrain she knew so well: “Oh, say, where goes your love? O gai, vine le roi!” Her hand caught her bosom as if to stifle a sudden pain. That song had been the keynote to her new life, and it seemed now as if it were also to be the final benediction. All her spirit gathered itself up for a great resolution: she would not yield to this invading weakness, this misery of body and mind. Some one drew out of the shadows and came towards her. It was Madame Degardy. She had seen the sobbing figure inside the tent, but, with the occasional wisdom of the foolish of this world, she had not been less considerate than the children of light.