Michel was silent.
"Shall we start to-night?"
Still Michel said nothing.
"Well," she said, "why don't you answer me?"
"Because nothing is less sure than our departure," he replied.
"But you promised your mother to go to-night."
"I told my mother it depended on her."
"That is, on me," said Bertha.
"What!" exclaimed Michel, "would Bertha, true royalist and so devoted to the cause, leave France without thinking of those she leaves behind her?"
"What can you mean?" asked Bertha.