It was no longer a matter of overthrowing a usurper, or of coming to the help of devoted friends,--fanatical sympathies wrapped in a shroud of mystery.

She now saw all social forces full-armed against her cousins and herself.

There was no taking a prison by assault with her own hands, no deliverance of prisoners from the midst of a hostile population and beneath the eyes of a watchful police.

So, when the young lawyer, alarmed at the stupor of the generous and noble girl, which the natural expression of her face made still more noticeable, endeavored to revive her courage, she turned to him and said: "I must be silent; I suffer,--I wait." The accent, gesture, and look with which the words were said made this answer one of those sublime things which only need a wider stage to make them famous.
A few moments later old d'Hauteserre was saying to the Marquis de Chargeboeuf: "What efforts I have made for my two unfortunate sons! I have already laid by in the Funds enough to give them eight thousand francs a year.

If they had only been willing to serve in the army they would have reached the higher grades by this time, and could now have married to advantage.