They were in a dreadful alarm at the nearness of the republicans; they knew well that their ruthless enemies spared none that fell into their hands.

I should belie these heroines if I said that they feared more for themselves than for those they loved so dearly, but they were not accustomed yet to the close vicinity of danger; and when they learned that a battle had been lost and won that evening, within a mile or two, in the very next parish to that in which they lived, they looked at each other, and trembling asked what next was to be done.
"You must not leave us, Charles, you must not leave us again," said Madame de Lescure to her husband; "indeed you must not leave us here." She paused a moment, and then added, with an accent of horror which she could not control, "What would become of us if these men came upon us when you were away ?" "Wherever you go, let us go with you," said Marie, forgetting in her excitement her usual maidenly reserve, and laying her little hand as she spoke upon her lover's arm; then blushing, she withdrew it, and turned to her brother.
"Do not turn from him, Marie," said her sister-in-law.

"You will soon want his strong arm, and his kind, loving heart." "Charles will not desert me, Victorine," said Marie, blushing now more beautifully than ever, for though she knew that Henri loved her, he had never absolutely told her so.

"Though you are his dearest care, he will always have a hand to stretch to his poor Marie." Before she had finished speaking, Henri held her close in his embrace.
It was perhaps hardly a fitting time for him to make an avowal of his love; but lovers cannot always choose the most proper season for their confessions.

He was still hot from the battle which he had fought; his hands were still black with powder; the well-known red scarf was still twisted round his belt, and held within its folds his armament of pistols.