As the Emperor left the room, followed by the officers and men, a little silence fell over the three people remaining therein.

"Monsieur le Comte d'Aumenier!" exclaimed the Countess Laure, wonder, derision and disdain in her voice. "Your château, your domain!"

She looked about the great hall and laughed scornfully. Young Marteau turned crimson. He threw up his head proudly.

"Mademoiselle——" he began sternly, his voice full of indignant protest and resentment.

"Don't be too hard on the lad, Countess," interposed the Englishman, his interest aroused. "By gad, he saved your honor, your life, and——"

"And, if I mistake not, I repaid the obligation by saving his life also, sir."

"And I recognize it, and am grateful, mademoiselle."

"I am ordered to report to you, sir," said a young man, coming into the room followed by a file of dismounted soldiers, and relieving a situation growing most tense.

"Very good," said Marteau, devoutly thankful for the interruption. "You will dispose your men so as to guard the approaches of the château at every hand. You will keep a strict lookout, and you will awaken me at dawn. I think there is nothing to be apprehended from the enemy. The advance of the Emperor will have cleared all this section of even wandering troops of Cossacks by this time, but there are masterless men abroad."

"I shall know how to deal with them," said the young officer, saluting.

"You will also send men to remove these dead bodies and clear up this room. Take this poor lad"—pointing to Pierre—"and see that he is cared for. You will find a place for him upstairs. Your regimental surgeon——"

"Is attending to the wounded. I will see that the boy gets every care, sir."

"And Bal-Arrêt?"

"His arm is dressed, and he is the admiration of the camp-fire."

"I suppose so."

"Any other orders, Major?"

"None; you may go."

"Mademoiselle," said Marteau, facing the Countess as the officer turned away, his men taking the dead bodies and the wounded peasant with them, "you wrong me terribly."

"By saving your life, pray?" she asked contemptuously.

"By—by—your——" he faltered and stopped.

"In what way, Monsieur le Comte?" interrupted the young woman, who knew very well what the young man meant.

In her irritating use of his new-found title, and in the way in which it fell from her lips, she cut him like a whip-lash, and she did it deliberately, too—he, the Count, forsooth!

"Call me Marteau," he protested, stepping toward her, at which she fell back a little. "Or, better still, as when I was a boy, your faithful follower, Jean."

"If the Emperor has the power, he has made you a Count; if he has not, you are not."

"What the Emperor makes me is of little consequence between us, mademoiselle. It is what I am that counts."

"And you remain, then, just Jean Marteau, of the loyal Marteaux?"

"One does not wipe out the devotion of years in a moment. My father served yours, your grandfather, your uncle, your father. I am still"—he threw up his head proudly as he made the confession—"your man."

"But the title——"

"What is a title? Your uncle is in England. He does not purpose to come back to France unless he whom he calls his rightful king again rules the land. Should that come to be, my poor patent of nobility would not be worth the parchment upon which it was engrossed."

"And the lands?"

"In any case I would but hold them in trust for the Marquis——"

"My uncle is old, childless. I am the last of the long line."

"Then I will hold them for you, mademoiselle. They are yours. When this war is over, and France is at peace once more, I will take my father's place and keep them for you."

"I could not accept such a sacrifice."

"It would be no sacrifice."

"I repeat, I cannot consent to be under such obligation, even to you."

"There is a way——" began the young Frenchman softly, shooting a meaning glance at the young woman.

"I do not understand," she faltered.

"I am peasant born,&quo............