both send me a kind word now and then; and I will write letters to you all from Egypt, and when I come home, my wife and I will make acquaintance, and we will all be happy together:  and if I am killed out there, don’t you go and fret your poor little hearts about it; it is a soldier’s lot sooner or later.  Besides, you will find I have taken care of you; nobody shall come and turn you out of your quarters, even though Jean Raynal should be dead; I have got to meet Picard at Riviere’s on that very business—­I am off.”

He was gone as brusquely as he came.

“Mother! sister!” cried Josephine, “help me to love this man.”

“You need no help,” cried the baroness, with enthusiasm, “not love him, we should all be monsters.”

Raynal came to supper looking bright and cheerful.  “No more work to-day. 
I have nothing to do but talk; fancy that.”

This evening Josephine de Beaurepaire, who had been silent and thoughtful, took a quiet opportunity, and purred in his ear, “Monsieur!”

“Mademoiselle!” rang the trombone.

“Am I not to go to Egypt?”

“No.”

Josephine drew back at this brusque reply like a sensitive plant.  But she returned to the attack.

“But is it not a wife’s duty to be by her husband’s side to look after his comfort—­to console him when others vex him—­to soothe him when he is harassed?”

“Her first duty is to obey him.”

“Certainly.”

“Well, when I am your husband, I shall bid you stay with your mother and sister while I go to Egypt.”

“I shall obey you.”

He told her bluntly he thought none the worse of her for making the offer; but should not accept it.

Camille Dujardin slept that night at a roadside inn about twelve miles from Beaurepaire, and not more than six from the town where the wedding was to take place next day.

It was a close race.

And the racers all unconscious of each other, yet spurred impartially by events that were now hurrying to a climax.

CHAPTER VII.

The next day at sharp nine two carriages were at the door.

But the ladies were not ready.  Thus early in the campaign did they throw all into disorder.  For so nicely had Raynal timed the several events that this threw him all into confusion.  He stamped backwards and forwards, and twisted his mustaches, and swore.  This enforced unpunctuality was a new torture to him.  Jacintha told them he was angry, and that made them nervous and flurried, and their fingers strayed wildly among hooks and eyes, and all sorts of fastenings; they were not ready till half-past nine.  Conscious they deserved a scolding, they sent Josephine down first to mollify.  She dawned upon the honest soldier so radiant, so dazzling in her snowy dress, with her coronet of pearls (an heirloom), and her bridal veil parted, and the flush of conscious beauty on her cheek, that instead of scolding her, he actually blurted out, “Well! by St. Denis it was worth waiting half an hour for.”