“Bless me Dagobert! how can this be possible?”

“That is just what I said to the general.  He answered me that he had never been able to explain to himself this event, which seemed as incredible as it was true.  Moreover, your father must have been greatly struck with the countenance of this man, who appeared, he said, about thirty years of age—­for he remarked, that his extremely black eyebrows were joined together, and formed, as it were, one line from temple to temple, so that he seemed to have a black streak across his forehead.  Remember this, my children; you will soon see why.”

“Oh, Dagobert! we shall not forget it,” said the orphans, growing more and more astonished as he proceeded.

“Is it not strange—­this man with a black seam on his forehead?”

“Well, you shall hear.  The general had, as I told you, been left for dead at Waterloo.  During the night which he passed on the field of battle, in a sort of delirium brought on by the fever of his wounds, he saw, or fancied he saw, this same man bending over him, with a look of great mildness and deep melancholy, stanching his wounds, and using every effort to revive him.  But as your father, whose senses were still wandering, repulsed his kindness saying, that after such a defeat, it only remained to die—­it appeared as if this man replied to him; ’You must live for Eva!’ meaning your mother, whom the general had left at Warsaw, to join the Emperor, and make this campaign of France.”

“How strange, Dagobert!—­And since then, did our father never see this man?”

“Yes, he saw him—­for it was he who brought news of the general to your poor mother.”

“When was that?  We never heard of it.”

“You remember that, on the day your mother died, you went to the pine forest with old Fedora?”

“Yes,” answered Rose, mournfully; “to fetch some heath, of which our mother was so fond.”

“Poor mother!” added Blanche; “she appeared so well that morning, that we could not dream of the calamity which awaited us before night.”

“True, my children; I sang and worked that morning in the garden, expecting, no more than you did, what was to happen.  Well, as I was singing at my work, on a sudden I heard a voice ask me in French:  ’Is this the village of Milosk?’—­I turned round, and saw before me a stranger; I looked at him attentively, and, instead of replying, fell back two steps, quite stupefied.”

“Ah, why?”

“He was of tall stature, very pale, with a high and open forehead; but his eyebrows met, and seemed to form one black streak across it.”

“Then it was the same man who had twice been with our father in battle?”

“Yes—­it was he.”

“But, Dagobert,” said Rose, thoughtfully, “is it not a long time since these battles?”

“About sixteen years.”

“And of what age was this stranger?”

“Hardly more than thirty.”