"Come and see me to-morrow morning.

I may have some advice to give you." In the evening I saw Madame, and told her that things were going badly on the frontier; but I did not know that the Germans were, at the time of speaking, actually on French territory, and that MacMahon had been beaten at Metz.
"Get the women out of the country," said John Turner to me the next morning, "and don't bother me." I went back to the Hotel Clericy and there found Alphonse Giraud.

He was in the morning-room with the two ladies.
"I have come," he said, "to bid you all good-by, as I was just telling these ladies.
"You remember," he went on, taking my hand and holding it in his effusive French way--"you remember that I said I would buy myself a commission?
The good God has sent me one, but it is a rifle instead of a sword." "Alphonse has volunteered to fight as a common soldier!" cried Lucille, her face glowing with excitement.

"Is it not splendid?
Ah, if I were only a man!" Madame looked gravely and almost apprehensively at her daughter.

She did not join in Giraud's proud laugh.
"There is bad news," she said, looking at my face.