More and more agitated, Dagobert avoided the marshal’s gaze, and trembled like a leaf.  Adrienne cast down her eyes without answering.  Her heart sunk within her, at thought of dealing the terrible blow to Marshal Simon.

The latter, astonished at this silence, looking at Adrienne, then at the soldier, became first uneasy, and at last alarmed.  “Dagobert!” he exclaimed, “something is concealed from me!”

“General!” stammered the soldier, “I assure you—­I—­I—.”

“Madame!” cried Pierre Simon, “I conjure you, in pity, speak to me frankly!—­my anxiety is horrible.  My first fears return upon me.  What is it?  Are my wife and daughters ill?  Are they in danger?  Oh! speak! speak!”

“Your daughters, marshal,” said Adrienne “have been rather unwell, since their long journey—­but they are in no danger.”

“Oh, heaven! it is my wife!”

“Have courage, sir!” said Mdlle. de Cardoville, sadly.  “Alas! you must seek consolation in the affection of the two angels that remain to you.”

“General!” said Dagobert, in a firm grave tone, “I returned from Siberia—­alone with your two daughters.”

“And their mother! their mother!” cried Simon, in a voice of despair.

“I set out with the two orphans the day after her death,” said the soldier.

“Dead?” exclaimed Pierre Simon, overwhelmed by the stroke; “dead?” A mournful silence was the only answer.  The marshal staggered beneath this unexpected shock, leaned on the back of a chair for support, and then, sinking into the seat, concealed his face with his hands.  For same minutes nothing was heard but stifled sobs, for not only had Pierre Simon idolized his wife, but by one of those singular compromises, that a man long cruelly tried sometimes makes with destiny, Pierre Simon, with the fatalism of loving souls, thought he had a right to reckon upon happiness after so many years of suffering, and had not for a moment doubted that he should find his wife and child—­a double consolation reserved to him after going through so much.  Very different from certain people, whom the habit of misfortune renders less exacting, Simon had reckoned upon happiness as complete as had been his misery.  His wife and child were the sole, indispensable conditions of this felicity, and, had the mother survived her daughters, she would have no more replaced them in his eyes than they did her.  Weakness or avarice of the heart, so it was; we insist upon this singularity, because the consequences of these incessant and painful regrets exercised a great influence on the future life of Marshal Simon.  Adrienne and Dagobert had respected the overwhelming grief of this unfortunate man.  When he had given a free course to his tears, he raised his manly countenance, now of marble paleness, drew his hand across his blood-shot eyes, rose, and said to Adrienne, “Pardon me, madame; I could not conquer my first emotion.  Permit me to retire.  I have cruel details to ask of the worthy friend who only quitted my wife at the last moment.  Have the kindness to let me see my children—­my poor orphans!—­” And the marshal’s voice again broke.