shoe half buried in the wet gravel, at this moment the wind bears to her
the distant echo of a blast of trumpets. It is the regiment starting!

Bettina makes a desperate effort, abandons her umbrella, finds her little
sabot, fastens it on as well as she can, and starts off running, with a
deluge descending on her head.

At last, she is in the wood, the trees protect her a little. Another
blast, nearer this time. Bettina fancies she hears the rolling of the
gun-carriages. She makes a last effort, there is the terrace, she is
there just in time.

Twenty yards off she perceived the white horses of the trumpeters, and
along the road caught glimpses, vaguely appearing through the fog, of the
long line of guns and wagons.

She sheltered herself under one of the old limes which bordered the
terrace. She watched, she waited. He is there among that confused mass
of riders. Will she be able to recognize him? And he, will he see her?
Will any chance make him turn his head that way?

Bettina knows that he is Lieutenant in the second battery of his
regiment; she knows that a battery is composed of six guns, and six
ammunition wagons. Of course it is the Abbe Constantin who has taught
her that. Thus she must allow the first battery to pass, that is to say,
count six guns, six wagons, and then--he will be there.

There he is at last, wrapped in his great cloak, and it is he who sees,
who recognizes her first. A few moments before, he had recalled to his
mind a long walk which he had taken with her one evening, when night was