“You find me in a state of disturbance,” said she, with a slight degree of embarrassment, “it seems that we are going to have war and that our troops have entered Italy. Have you any news of Claudet?”
Julien started. This was the last remark he could have expected. Claudet’s name had not been once mentioned in their interview at Maigrefontaine, and he had nursed the hope that Reine thought no longer about him.
All his mistrust returned in a moment on hearing this name come from the young girl’s lips the moment he entered the house, and seeing the emotion which the news in the paper had caused her.
“He wrote me a few days ago,” replied he.
“Where is he?”
“In Italy, with his battalion, which is a part of the first army corps. His last letter is dated from Alexandria.”
Reine’s eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she gazed absently at the distant wooded horizon.
“Poor Claudet!” murmured she, sighing, “what is he doing just now, I wonder?”
“Ah!” thought Julien, his visage darkening, “perhaps she loves him still!”
Poor Claudet! At the very time they are thus talking about him at the farm, he is camping with his battalion near Voghera, on the banks of one of the obscure tributaries of the river Po, in a country rich in waving corn, interspersed with bounteous orchards and hardy vines climbing up to the very tops of the mulberry-trees. His battalion forms the extreme end of the advance guard, and at the approach of night, Claudet is on duty on the banks of the stream. It is a lovely May night, irradiated by millions of stars, which, under the limpid Italian sky, appear larger and nearer to the watcher than they appeared in the vaporous atmosphere of the Haute-Marne.