Suppose bad luck had sent a bullet into his heart in his first battle in
Italy. Would have been forgotten in a day. And if no bullet had ever
touched him, wouldn't have amounted to much, without immense skill."

"Do we go back to Chastel, sir?" asked John.

"Back to what's left of it. Not much, I think. See nothing but Gothic
tower!"

John looked up. The great Gothic spire hung over a scene of desolation
and ruin, now complete save for the cathedral itself. Otherwise not an
undamaged house remained in Chastel. Fires still smoldered, and the
largest of them all, marked where the Hôtel de l'Europe had stood. The
firing had ceased save for a distant murmur where the cavalry still
pursued, and John choked as he gazed at ruined Chastel. He looked most
often at the burning Hôtel de l'Europe where he had spent such happy
hours, the happiest, in truth, of his life, hours that glowed. He could
see as vividly, as if it were all real again, Julie and himself at the
little table by the window, and Antoine and Suzanne serving. He choked,
and for a little while he could not reply to Wharton's question:

"Why, Scott, what's struck you? You look as if you had lost your last
friend!"

"Wharton," replied John at last, "I found Mademoiselle Lannes and her
servants, Antoine and Suzanne Picard here, come as requested by letter,
to meet her brother Philip. I found them in the cathedral waiting, and
we went to the Hôtel de l'Europe, where she and I dined together."

"Good Heavens! You don't mean to say she was there under the awful fire