all that his chief expected of him, from Orleans to the battle of Maus,
where, in the thick of the fight, a shell struck him in the breast. It
is necessary to say that on the evening before he had noticed that the
little medallion which had been given to him by Fanny Dorville, worn from
its chain by friction, had disappeared from his neck. Scoffing comrades
smiled at the coincidence; the more credulous looked grave.

The wound was serious, for, transported to the Chateau de Montgeron, a
few leagues distant, the Marquis was compelled to remain there six months
before he was in fit condition to rejoin his command. Toward the end of
his convalescence, in June, 1871, the brother and sister resolved to make
a pious pilgrimage to the cradle of their ancestors.

Exactly nine years had elapsed since the castle and lands had been sold
at auction and fallen into the possession of a company of speculators,
who had divided it and resold it to various purchasers. Only the farm of
Valpendant, with a house of ancient and vast construction, built in the
time of Philippe-Auguste, remained to an old tenant, with his
dependencies and his primitive methods of agriculture.

Leaving the train at the Beaumont tunnel, the two travellers made their
way along a road which crosses the high plateau that separates the forest
of Carnelle from the forest of the Ile-d'Adam, whence one can discern the
steeple of Prerolles rising above the banks of the Oise.

From this culminating point they beheld the chateau transformed into a
factory, the park cut up into countryseats, the fields turned into
market-gardens! With profound sadness the brother and the sister met
each other's glance, and their eyes filled with tears, as if they stood
before a tomb on All Souls' Day.