"I'm willing. What a smell of burning there is here!"
"Yes, they set fire to the heath."
"Ah! How came Monsieur le baron to escape the fire? He is in the direction of it."
"Jean Oullier put us among the reeds in the Fréneuse pond."
"Ah! that's why when I touched you just now I felt you were all wet?"
"Yes; as Jean Oullier did not return I crossed the pond to seek for help. Finding no one, I took Baron Michel on my shoulders and brought him ashore. I hoped to carry him to the nearest house, but I have not the strength. I have been obliged to leave him among the bushes and come to the high-road myself. We have had nothing to eat for twenty-four hours."
"Ha! you're a stalwart girl!" cried Courtin, who, in the uncertainty he felt as to how his young master might receive him, was not sorry to conciliate Mademoiselle Bertha's good-will. "You are just the helpmate Monsieur le baron needs in these stirring times."
"It is my duty to give my life for him," said Bertha.
"Yes," said Courtin, emphatically; "and that duty no one, I swear to God, understands as you do. But be calm and don't walk so fast!"
"But he suffers! he may be calling for me--if he comes out of his swoon."