He handed him a large packet sealed with the arms of France. The other tore it open; and there was his brevet as colonel. His cheek flushed and his eye glittered with joy. The aide-de-camp next gave him a parcel: “Your epaulets, colonel! We hear you are going into the wilds where epaulets don’t grow. You are to join the army of the Rhine as soon as your wound is well.” “Wherever my country calls me.” “Your address, then, colonel, that we may know where to put our finger on a tried soldier when we want one.” “I am going to Beaurepaire.” “Beaurepaire? I never heard of it.” “You never heard of Beaurepaire? it is in Brittany, forty-five leagues from Paris, forty-three leagues and a half from here.” “Good! Health and honor to you, colonel.” “The same to you, lieutenant; or a soldier’s death.” The new colonel read the precious document across his horse’s mane, and then he was going to put one of the epaulets on his right shoulder, bare at present: but he reflected. “No; she should make him a colonel with her own dear hand. He put them in his pocket. He would not even look at them till she had seen them. Oh, how happy he was not only to come back to her alive, but to come back to her honored.” His wound smarted, his limbs ached, but no pain past or present could lay hold of his mind. In his great joy he remembered past suffering and felt present pain--yet smiled. Only every now and then he pined for wings to shorten the weary road. He was walking his horse quietly, drooping a little over his saddle, when another officer well mounted came after him and passed him at a hand gallop with one hasty glance at his uniform, and went tearing on like one riding for his life. “Don’t I know that face?” said Dujardin. He cudgelled his memory, and at last he remembered it was the face of an old comrade. At least it strongly reminded him of one Jean Raynal who had saved his life in the Arno, when they were lieutenants together. Yes, it was certainly Raynal, only bronzed by service in some hot country. “Ah!” thought Camille; “I suppose I am more changed than he is; for he certainly did not recognize me at all. Now I wonder what that fellow has been doing all this time. What a hurry he was in! a moment more and I should have hailed him. Perhaps I may fall in with him at the next town.” He touched his horse with the spur, and cantered gently on, for trotting shook him more than he could bear. Even when he cantered he had to press his hand against his bosom, and often with the motion a bitterer pang than usual came and forced the water from his eyes; and then he smiled. His great love and his high courage made this reply to the body’s anguish. And still his eyes looked straight forward as at some object in the distant horizon, while he came gently on, his hand pressed to his bosom, his head drooping now and then, smiling patiently, upon the road to Beaurepaire.