strove to win the younger's confidence; but George could not respond. His whole inner being was too sore, and his mind ran incomparably more upon the damnable letter that must be lying somewhere in the archives of the memory of the man talking to him than upon his own political prospects. The conversation ended, for Maxwell, in mere awkwardness and disappointment. He said to himself that, after all, Marcella had been but dreaming dreams, and beguiling him to share them. When the ladies withdrew, a brilliant group of them stood for a moment on the first landing of the great oak staircase, lighting candles, and chattering. Madeleine Penley took her candle absently from Marcella's hand, saying nothing. The girl's curious face, under its crown of gold-red hair, was transformed somehow to an extraordinary beauty. The frightened parting of the lips and lifting of the brows had become rather a look of exquisite surprise, as of one who knows at last "the very heart of love.»

"I am coming to you presently,» murmured Marcella, laying her cheek against the girl's. «Oh, do come!» said Madeleine, with a great breath, and she walked away unsteadily by herself into the darkness of the tapestried passage, her white dress floating behind her. Marcella looked after her, then turned with shining eyes to Letty Tressady. Her expression changed.

«I am afraid your headache has been very bad all the evening,» she said penitently. «Do let me come and look after you.»

She went with Letty to her room, and put her into a chair beside the wood fire that, even on this warm night, was not unwelcome in the huge place. Letty, indeed, shivered a little as she bent toward it.

«Must you go so early?» said Marcella, hanging over her. «I heard Sir George speak of the ten-o'clock train.»

«Oh, yes,» said Letty; «that will be best.>> She stared into the fire without speaking. Marcella knelt down beside her.

«You won't hate me any more?» she said in a low, pleading voice, taking two cold hands in her own.

Letty looked up.

« I should like," she said, speaking with difficulty, «if you cared-to see you sometimes.» "Only tell me when,» said Marcella, laying her lips lightly on the hands, and I will come. Then she hesitated. «Oh, do believe,» she broke out at last, but still in the same low voice, «that all can be healed! Only show

AN hour later Marcella left Madeleine Penley, and went back to her own room. The smile and flush with which she had received the girl's last happy kisses disappeared as she walked along the corridor. Her head drooped, her arms hung listlessly beside her.

Maxwell found her in her own little sittingroom, almost in the dark. He sat down by her, and took her hand.

«You could n't make any impression on him as to Parliament?» she asked him, almost whispering.

«No; he persists that he must go. I think his private circumstances at Ferth have a great deal to do with it.»>

She shook her head. She turned away from him, took up a paper-knife, and let it fall on the table beside her. He thought that she must have been in tears before he found her, and he saw that she could find no words in which to express herself. Lifting her hand to his lips, he held it there silently, with a touch all tenderness.

«Oh, why am I so happy!» she broke out at last, with a sob, almost drawing her hand away. «Such a life as mine seems to absorb and batten upon other people's dues, to grow rich by robbing their joy-joy that should feed hundreds, and comes all to me! And that, besides, I should actually bruise and hurt->> Her voice failed her.

«Fate has a way of being tolerably even at last,» said Maxwell, slowly, after a pause. «As to Tressady, no one can say what will come of it. He has strange stuff in him-fine stuff, I think. He will pull himself together. And for the wife-probably already he owes you much! I saw her look at you to-nightonce as you touched her shoulder. Dear, what spells have you been using?»

«Oh, I will do all I can-all I can!» Marcella repeated in a low, passionate voice, as one who makes a vow to her own heart.

«But after to-morrow he will not willingly come across us again,» said Maxwell, quietly. «That I saw.»

She gave a sad and wordless assent.

DRAWN BY H. A. OGDEN

NAPOLEON IN THE UNIFORM OF CHASSEUR-À-CHEVAL, COM

THE STRUGGLES OF EXHAUSTION.

HOUGH futile as to the ultimate result, the capture of Rheims was a telling thrust. On receipt of the news from Laon, Schwarzenberg immediately set his army in motion against Macdonald, and Blücher, after waiting two days to restore order among his worried troops and insubordinate lieutenants, advanced and laid siege to Compiègne. The capture of Rheims MONLY WORN ON CAMPAIGN. checked the movements of both Austrians and Prussians, dismay prevailed in both camps, and both armies began to draw back. «This terrible Napoleon,» wrote Langeron in his memoirs, "they thought they saw him everywhere. He had beaten us all, one after the other; we were always frightened by the daring of his enterprises, the swiftness of his movements, and his clever combinations. Scarcely had we formed a plan when it was disconcerted by him.» Besides this, in obedience to Napoleon's call, the peasantry began an organized guerrilla warfare, avenging the pillage, incendiarism, and military executions of the allies by a brutal retaliation in kind which made the marauding invaders quake. Finally the momentary consternation of the allies verged on panic when the report reached headquarters that Bernadotte, lying inactive at Liège, with 23,000 Swedes, had permitted a flag of truce from Joseph to enter his presence. Could it be that the sly schemer, for the furtherance of

his ambition to govern France, was turning traitor to the coalition?

Reinforcements from Paris, slender as they were, flowed steadily into Napoleon's camp, and when he learned that both Schwarzenberg and Blücher had virtually retreated, he believed himself able to cope once more with the former. Leaving Marmont with 7000 men at Berry-au-Bac, and Mortier with 10,000 at Rheims and Soissons, he enjoined them both to hold the line toward Paris against Blücher at all hazards, and himself set out, on March 17, for Arcis on the Aube. This he did, instead of marching direct to Meaux for the defense of Paris, because it would, in his own words, «give the enemy a great shock, and result in unforeseen circumstances.>>

Schwarzenberg's movements during the next three days awakened in Napoleon the suspicion, which he was only too glad to accept as a certainty, that the Austro-Russian army was on the point of retreating into the Vosges or beyond; and on the 20th he announced his decision of marching farther eastward, past Troyes, toward the frontier forts still in French hands. That very day he was undeceived, for news was received within the lines he had established about Arcis that the enemy, far from retreating, was advancing. Soon the French cavalry skirmishers appeared galloping in flight, and were brought to a halt only when the Emperor, with drawn sword, threw himself across their path. A short, sharp struggle ensued-16,000 French with 24,500 of their foe. It was irregular and indecisive, but Napoleon held his own. The neighboring hamlet of Torcy had also been attacked by the allies, and before their onset the French had at first yielded. But they were rallied, and at nightfall the position was recaptured. This sudden exhibition of courage by Schwarzenberg puzzled Napoleon; after long deliberation he concluded that the hostile troops were in all probability only a rear-guard covering the enemy's re

treat. He was not very far wrong, but far enough to make all the difference to him.

Thanks to Caulaincourt's supreme exertions, the congress at Châtillon was still sitting, and on the 13th a last despairing appeal to the Emperor was written by that minister. The messenger was delayed three days by the military operations, but when he arrived, on the 16th, Maret wrung from Napoleon concessions which included Antwerp, Mainz, and Alessandria. In the despatch announcing this, and written on the 17th to Caulaincourt, Maret made no reservation except one: that Napoleon intended, after signing the treaty, to secure for himself whatever the military situation at the close of the war might entitle him to retain. The return of the messenger was likewise delayed for three days, and it was the 21st before he reached the outskirts of Châtillon. He arrived to find Caulaincourt departing; the second «carte blanche» had arrived too late. With all his adroitness, the minister had been unable to protract negotiations longer than the 18th. His appeal having brought no immediate response, he had, several days earlier, despatched a faithful warning, and this reached Napoleon at La Fère Champenoise simultaneously with the departure of the messenger for Châtillon. The day previous the Emperor had received bad news from southern France: how Bordeaux had opened its gates to a small detachment of English under Hill; how the Duke of Angoulême had been cheered by the people as he publicly proclaimed Louis XVIII king of France. Apparently neither this bad news nor Caulaincourt's warning profoundly impressed Napoleon; he knew his Gascons well, his "carte blanche » he must have believed to be in Châtillon, and, in high spirits, he hastened on to Arcis, determined to make the most of the time intervening until the close of negotiations.

There was nothing short of panic at Schwarzenberg's headquarters in Troyes; the commander himself was on a sick-bed, having entirely succumbed to the hardships of winter warfare. No sooner had he ordered the first backward step than his army had displayed a feverish anxiety for farther retreat. As things were going, it appeared as if the different corps would, for lack of judicious leadership, be permitted to withdraw still farther in such a way as to separate the various divisions ever more widely, and expose them successively to annihilating blows from Napoleon, like those which had overwhelmed the scattered segments of the Silesian army. Such was the general terror that a false rumor of Alexander's

having expressed a desire to reopen the congress spread, and was believed.

Schwarzenberg's strange hesitancy since invading France was at the outset, and beyond his natural timidity, due to Metternich's politics, a desire to save France for his Emperor's son-in-law, and thus checkmate Prussian ambitions for leadership in Germany; but during the movements of February and March. it appears to have been due almost exclusively to cowardice. The memoirs of Castlereagh, of Metternich, and of Schwarzenberg himself aim to give the impression that since the congress of Prague everything had been straightforward, and that Austria had no thought of sparing Napoleon or acting otherwise than she did in the end. Yet the indications of the time are quite the other way; the Russians in Schwarzenberg's army were furious, and, as one of them wrote, suspicious of what we are doing and what we are not doing.» Alexander was in the crisis deeply concerned, not for peace, but for an orderly, concentrated retreat. With stubborn fatalism he never doubted the final outcome, and during his stay in Châtillon he had spent his leisure hours in excogitating a careful plan for the grand entry into Paris, whereby the honors were to be his own. Hastening, therefore, on the 19th to Schwarzenberg's bedside, he persuaded the Austrian commander to make a stand long enough to secure concentration in retreat, and it was agreed to do this still farther in the rear on the heights of Trannes. Such a course appeared to the more daring among the Austrian staff to smack of pusillanimity, and by the influence of some one, probably Radetzky, it was determined without consulting the Czar to concentrate near Arcis on the left bank of the Aube, in order to assume the offensive at Plancy. This independent resolution of Schwarzenberg's staff was the explanation of the meetings near Arcis and at Torcy. Alexander was much incensed, declaring that Napoleon's real purpose was to hold them while cutting off their connections. on the extreme right at Bar and Chaumont. This was in fact a close conjecture. Napoleon had definitely adopted the plan of hurrying toward the Vosges, of summoning the peasantry to rise en masse, and of calling out the garrison troops from the frontier fortresses, to reinforce his army and enable him to strike the invaders from behind.

Yet once again the Austrian general was to stumble upon greatness. By his retreat to Troyes on February 22 he had avoided a decisive conflict, saving his own army, and leaving Napoleon to exhaust himself against the

army of Silesia; by his decision of March 19 he confirmed Napoleon in the conviction that the allies were overawed, and thus led his desperate foe into the greatest blunder conceivable, this chimerical scheme of concentrating his slender, scattered force on the confines of France, while the great army of invaders marched direct on Paris. Napoleon's movements of concentration had thus far met with no resistance, in spite of their temerity. On the 20th he announced to his minister of war, «I shall neglect Troyes, and betake myself in all haste to my fortresses.» The same day he ordered Marmont, in case Blücher should resume the offensive, to abandon Paris and hasten to Châlons. This was not a sudden decision; the contingency had been mentioned in a letter of February 8 to Joseph, and again from Rheims emphatic injunctions to keep the Empress and the King of Rome from falling into Austrian hands were issued to the same correspondent. «Do not abandon my son,» the Emperor pleaded; «and remember that I would rather see him in the Seine than in the hands of the enemies of France. The fate of Astyanax, prisoner to the Greeks, has always seemed to me the unhappiest in history.» In this ultimate decision Napoleon showed how cosmopolitan he had grown; he had forgotten, if he ever understood, the extreme centralization of France; he should have known that, Paris lost, the head of the country was gone, and that the dwarfed limbs could develop little or no national vitality.

This bitter lesson he was soon to learn. On the afternoon of the 20th about 16,000 French had confronted nearly 25,000 of the allies in the sharp but indecisive skirmishes before Arcis; the loss of the former was 1800, that of the allies 2700. Napoleon remained firm in the belief that he had to do with his retreating enemy's rear-guard; Schwarzenberg was convinced that the French had a strength far beyond the reality. During the night both armies were strongly reinforced, and in the early morning Napoleon had 27,500 men, enough, he believed, to demoralize the retreating Austrians. It was ten o'clock when he ordered the attack, Ney and Sebastiani being directed to the plateau behind the town. What was their surprise and dismay to find Schwarzenberg's entire army, which numbered not less than 100,000, drawn up in battle array on the plain to the eastward, the infantry in three dense columns, cavalry to right and left, with 370 pieces of artillery on the central front. The spectacle would have been dazzling to any but a soldier-the bright array of gay accoutrements, the glittering bayonets,

the waving banners, and the serried ranks. As it was, the audacious French skirmishers instinctively felt the incapacity of a general who could thus assemble an army as if on purpose to display its numbers and expose it to destruction. Without a thought they began a sort of challenging rencounter with horse-artillery and cavalry. But the Emperor's hopes were dashed when he learned the truth; with equal numbers he would have been exultant; a battle with odds of four to one he dared not risk. Sebastiani was kept on the heights to mask the retreat which was instantly determined upon, and at half-past one it began. This ruse was so successful, by reason of the alarms and crossings incident to the withdrawal of the French, that the allies were again terror-stricken; even the Czar rejected every suggestion of attack; again force was demoralized by genius. At last, however, scouts brought word that columns of French soldiers were debouching beyond the Aube, and the facts were plain. Even then the paralyzed invaders feared to attack, and it was not until two thirds of Napoleon's force was behind the stream that, after fierce fighting, the French rear was driven from the town. Oudinot's corps was the last to cross the river, and, standing until sappers had destroyed the bridge, it hurried away to follow the main column toward Vitry. The divisions of Gérard and Macdonald joined the march, and there were then 45,000 men in line.

While Napoleon was thus neutralizing the efforts of armies and generals by the renown of his name, two of his marshals were finally discredited. Enfeebled as Blücher appeared to be, he was no sooner freed from the awe of Napoleon's proximity than he began to move. On the 18th he passed the Aisne, and Marmont, disobeying the explicit instructions of Napoleon to keep open a line of retreat toward Châlons, began to withdraw toward Fismes, where he effected a junction with Mortier. His intention was to keep Blücher from Paris by false manoeuvers. Rheims and Épernay at once fell into hostile hands; there was no way left open toward Châlons except the long detour by Château Thierry and Étoges; and Blücher, it was found, was hurrying to effect a connection with Schwarzenberg. This was an assured checkmate. Meantime Augereau had displayed a similar incapacity. On the 8th he had begun a number of feeble, futile movements intended to prevent the allies from forming their Army of the South. But after a few aimless marches he returned to Lyons, and stood there in idleness until his opponents had completed their