He recovered a quarter of an hour by making the driver gallop.  Then occasional shrieks issued from the carriage that held the baroness.  That ancient lady feared annihilation:  she had not come down from a galloping age.

They drove into the town, drew up at the mayor’s house, were received with great ceremony by that functionary and Picard, and entered the house.

When their carriages rattled into the street from the north side, Colonel Dujardin had already entered it from the south, and was riding at a foot’s pace along the principal street.  The motion of his horse now shook him past endurance.  He dismounted at an inn a few doors from the mayor’s house, and determined to do the rest of the short journey on foot.  The landlord bustled about him obsequiously.  “You are faint, colonel; you have travelled too far.  Let me order you an excellent breakfast.”

“No.  I want a carriage; have you one?”

“I have two; but, unluckily, they are both engaged for the day, and by people of distinction.  Commandant Raynal is married to-day.”

“Ah!  I wish him joy,” said Camille, heartily.  He then asked the landlord to open the window, as he felt rather faint.  The landlord insisted on breakfast, and Camille sat down to an omelet and a bottle of red wine.  Then he lay awhile near the window, revived by the air, and watched the dear little street he had not seen for years.  He felt languid, but happy, celestially happy.

She was a few doors from him, and neither knew it.

A pen was put into her white hand, and in another moment she had signed a marriage contract.

“Now to the church,” cried the baroness, gayly.  To get to the church, they must pass by the window Camille reclined at.

CHAPTER VIII.

“Oh! there’s no time for that,” said Raynal.  And as the baroness looked horrified and amazed, Picard explained:  “The state marries its citizens now, with reason:  since marriage is a civil contract.”

“Marriage a civil contract!” repeated the baroness.  “What, is it then no longer one of the holy sacraments?  What horrible impiety shall we come to next?  Unhappy France!  Such a contract would never be a marriage in my eyes:  and what would become of an union the Church had not blessed?”

“Madame,” said Picard, “the Church can bless it still; but it is only the mayor here that can do it.”

All this time Josephine was blushing scarlet, and looking this way and that, with a sort of instinctive desire to fly and hide, no matter where, for a week or so.

“Haw! haw! haw!” roared Raynal; “here is a pretty mother.  Wants her daughter to be unlawfully married in a church, instead of lawfully in a house.  Give me the will!”

“Look here, mother-in-law:  I have left Beaurepaire to my lawful wife.”

“Otherwise,” put in Picard, “in case of death, it would pass to his heir-at-law.”