Once more she looked to see that everything was in order.  A bright fire blazed on the hearth, the shutters were carefully closed, the furniture shone with cleanliness, the bed had been made after a fashion that showed that Brigitte and the Countess had given their minds to every trifling detail.  It was impossible not to read her hopes in the dainty and thoughtful preparations about the room; love and a mother’s tenderest caresses seemed to pervade the air in the scent of flowers.  None but a mother could have foreseen the requirements of a soldier and arranged so completely for their satisfaction.  A dainty meal, the best of wine, clean linen, slippers—­no necessary, no comfort, was lacking for the weary traveler, and all the delights of home heaped upon him should reveal his mother’s love.

“Oh, Brigitte!...” cried the Countess, with a heart-rending inflection in her voice.  She drew a chair to the table as if to strengthen her illusions and realize her longings.

“Ah! madame, he is coming.  He is not far off....  I haven’t a doubt that he is living and on his way,” Brigitte answered.  “I put a key in the Bible and held it on my fingers while Cottin read the Gospel of St. John, and the key did not turn, madame.”

“Is that a certain sign?” the Countess asked.

“Why, yes, madame! everybody knows that.  He is still alive; I would stake my salvation on it; God cannot be mistaken.”

“If only I could see him here in the house, in spite of the danger.”

“Poor Monsieur Auguste!” cried Brigitte; “I expect he is tramping along the lanes!”

“And that is eight o’clock striking now!” cried the Countess in terror.

She was afraid that she had been too long in the room where she felt sure that her son was alive; all those preparations made for him meant that he was alive.  She went down, but she lingered a moment in the peristyle for any sound that might waken the sleeping echoes of the town.  She smiled at Brigitte’s husband, who was standing there on guard; the man’s eyes looked stupid with the strain of listening to the faint sounds of the night.  She stared into the darkness, seeing her son in every shadow everywhere; but it was only for a moment.  Then she went back to the drawing-room with an assumption of high spirits, and began to play at loto with the little girls.  But from time to time she complained of feeling unwell, and went to sit in her great chair by the fireside.  So things went in Mme. de Dey’s house and in the minds of those beneath her roof.

Meanwhile, on the road from Paris to Cherbourg, a young man, dressed in the inevitable brown carmagnole of those days, was plodding his way toward Carentan.  When the first levies were made, there was little or no discipline kept up.  The exigencies of the moment scarcely admitted of soldiers being equipped at once, and it was no uncommon thing to see the roads thronged with conscripts in their ordinary clothes.  The