The tents lay silent in the moonshine, but wayward lights flickered in the sumptuous dusk, and the quiet of the hills hung like a canopy over the bivouac of the little army.

No token of misfortune came out of this peaceful encampment, no omen of disaster crossed the long lane of drowsy fires and huge amorous shadows.

The sense of doom was in the girl's own heart, not in this deep cradle of the hills.
Now and again a sentinel crossed the misty line of vision, silent, and majestically tall, in the soft haze, which came down from Dalgrothe Mountain and fell like a delicate silver veil before the face of the valley.
As she looked, lost in a kind of dream, there floated up from the distant tent the refrain she knew so well: "Oh, say, where goes your love?
O gai, vine le roi!" Her hand caught her bosom as if to stifle a sudden pain.

That song had been the keynote to her new life, and it seemed now as if it were also to be the final benediction.

All her spirit gathered itself up for a great resolution: she would not yield to this invading weakness, this misery of body and mind.
Some one drew out of the shadows and came towards her.