All traces of the soldiers' occupation had been swept away.

But the room was empty.
She led me to the fire, and there in the full light, no longer a shadowy creature, but red-lipped, brilliant, throbbing with life and beauty, she stood opposite me--her eyes shining, her colour high, her breast heaving.
'Do I believe it ?' she said in a thrilling voice.

'I will tell you.

M.
de Cocheforet's hiding-place is in the hut behind the fern-stack, two furlongs beyond the village on the road to Auch.

You know now what no one else knows, he and I and Madame excepted.