The hospitality of Casabianda outlasted the sun. He had the virtues of his primitive race, and that appreciation of a guest which urges the entertainer to give not only the best that he has, but the best that he can borrow or steal.

"There is no breeze," said this Porto Vecchian, jovially; "it will come with the night. In waiting, this is wine of Balagna."

And he drank perdition to the Peruccas.

With nightfall they set sail; the great lateen swinging lazily under the pressure of those light airs that flit to and fro over the islands at evening and sunrise. All the arts of civilization have as yet failed to approach the easiest of all modes of progression and conveyance—sailing on a light breeze. For here is speed without friction, passage through the air without opposition, for it is the air that urges. Afloat, Casabianda was a silent man. His seafaring was of a surreptitious nature, perhaps. For companion, he had one with no roof to his mouth, whose speech was incomprehensible—an excellent thing in law-breakers.

De Vasselot was soon asleep, and slept all through that quiet night. He awoke to find the dawn spreading its pearly light over the sea. The great plain of Biguglia lay to the left under a soft blanket of mist, as deadly they say, as any African miasma, above which the distant mountains raised summits already tinged with rose. Ahead and close at hand, the old town of Bastia jutted out into the sea, the bluff Genoese bastion concealing the harbour from view. De Vasselot had never been to Bastia, which Casabianda described as a great and bewildering city, where the unwary might soon lose himself. The man of incomprehensible speech was, therefore, sent ashore to conduct Lory to the Hotel Clement. Casabianda, himself, would not land. The place reeked, he said, of the gendarmerie, and was offensive to his nostrils.

Clement had not opened his hospitable door. The street door, of course, always stood open, and the donkey that lived in the entrance-hall was astir. Lory dismissed his guide, and after ringing a bell which tinkled rather disappointingly just within the door, sat down patiently on the stairs to wait. At length the ancient chambermaid (who is no servant, but just a woman, in the strictly domestic sense of that fashionable word) reluctantly opened the door. French and Italian were alike incomprehensible to this lady, and de Vasselot was still explaining with much volubility, and a wealth of gesture, that the man he sought wore a tonsure, when Clement himself, affable and supremely indifferent to the scantiness of his own attire, appeared.

"Take the gentleman to number eleven," he commanded; "the Abbe Susini expects him."

The last statement appeared to be made with that breadth of veracity which is the special privilege of hotel-keepers all the world over; for the abbe was asleep when Lory entered his apartment. He awoke, however, with a characteristic haste, and his first conscious movement was suggestive of a readiness to defend himself against attack.

"Ah!" he cried, with a laugh, "it is you. You see me asleep."

"Asleep, but ready," answered de Vasselot, with a laugh. He liked a quick man.

Without speaking, he unbuttoned his tunic and threw his bundle of papers on the abbe's counterpane.

"Voila!" he said. "I suppose that is what you want for your salad."

"It is what Jean and I have been trying to get these three months," answered the priest.

He sat up in bed, and from that difficult position, did the honours of his apartment with an unassailable dignity.

"Sit down," he said, "and I will tell you a very long story. Not that chair—those are my clothes, my best soutane for this occasion—the other. That is well."



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE ABBE'S SALAD.

"He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That dares not put it to the touch To gain or lose it all."

"And mademoiselle's witnesses?" inquired the notary, when he had accommodated the ladies with chairs.

"Will arrive at ten o'clock," answered Mademoiselle Brun, with a glance at the notary's clock.

It was three minutes to ten. The notary was a young man, with smooth hair brushed straight back from a high forehead. He was one of those men who look clever, which, in some respects, is better than being clever. For a man who really has brains usually perceives his own limitations, while he who looks clever, and is not, has that boundless faith in himself which serves to carry men very far in a world which is too lazy to get up and kick impertinence as it passes.

The room had that atmosphere of mixed stuffiness and cigarette smoke which the traveller may sample in any French post-office. It is also the official air of a court of justice or a public bureau of any sort in France. There was a blank space on the wall, where a portrait of the emperor had lately hung. The notary would fill it by-and-by with a president or a king, or any face of any man who was for the moment in authority. Behind him, on the wall, was suspended a photograph of an elderly lady—his mother. It established confidence in the hearts of female clients, and reminded persons with daughters that this rising lawyer had as yet no wife.

The notary's bow to Mademoiselle Brun when she was seated was condescending, which betrayed the small fact that he was not so clever as he looked. To Denise he endeavoured to convey in one graceful inclination from the waist the deep regard of a legal adviser, struggling nobly to keep in bounds the overwhelming admiration of a man of heart and (out of office hours) of spirit. Gilbert, who had already exchanged greetings with the ladies, was leaning against the window, playing idly with the blind-cord. The notary's office was on the third floor. The colonel could not, therefore, see the pavement without leaning out, and the window was shut. Mademoiselle Brun noted this as she sat with crossed hands. She also remembered that the Hotel Clement was on the same side of the Boulevard du Palais as the house in which she found herself.

The notary had intended to be affable, but he dimly perceived that Denise was what he tersely called in his own mind grande dame, and was wise enough to busy himself with his papers in silence. He also suspected that Colonel Gilbert was a friend of these ladies, but he did not care to take advantage of his privilege in the presence of a fourth person, which left an unpleasant flavour on the palate of the smooth-haired lawyer. He glanced involuntarily at the blank space on the wall, and thought of the Republic.

"I have prepared a deed of sale," he said, in a formal voice, "which is as binding on both sides as if the full purchase-money had been exchanged for the title-deeds. All that will remain to be done after the present signature will be the usual legal formalities between notaries. Mademoiselle has but to sign here." And he indicated a blank space on the document.

Mademoiselle Brun was looking at the timepiece on the notary's wall. The town clocks were striking the hour. A knock at the door made the notary turn, with his quill pen still indicating the space for Denise's signature. It was the dingy clerk who sat in a sort of cage in the outer office. After opening the door he stood aside, and Susini came in with glittering eyes and a defiant chin. There was a pause, and Lory de Vasselot limped into the room after him. He was smiling and pleasant as he always was; even, his friends said, on the battlefield.

He looked at Denise, met her eyes for a moment and turned to bow with grave politeness to Gilbert. It was, oddly enough, the colonel who brought forward a chair for the wounded man.

"Sit down," he said curtly.

"These are my witnesses, Monsieur le Notaire," said Mademoiselle Brun.

The abbe was rubbing his thin, brown hands together, and contemplating the notary's table as a greedy man might contemplate a laden board. The notary himself was looking from one to the other. There was something in the atmosphere which he did not understand. It was, perhaps, the presence in the room of a cleverer head than his own, and he did not know upon whose shoulders to locate it. Denise, whose nature was frank and straightforward, was looking at Lory—looking him reflectively up and down—as a mother might look at a son of whose health she refrains from asking. Mademoiselle was gazing at the blank space on the wall, and the colonel was looking at mademoiselle with an odd smile.

He was standing in the embrasure of the window, and at this moment glanced at his watch. The notary looked at him inquiringly; for his attitude seemed to indicate that he expected some one else. And at this moment the music of a military band burst upon their ears. The colonel looked over his shoulder down into the street. He had his watch in his hand. De Vasselot rose instantly and went to the window. He stood beside the colonel, and those in the notary's office could see that they were talking quickly and gravely together, though the music drowned their voices. Behind them, on the notary's table, lay their differences; in front lay that which bound them together with the strongest ties between man and man—their honour and the honour of France. The music died away, followed by the diminishing sound of steady feet. All in the room were silent for a few moments, until the two soldiers turned from the window and came towards the table.

Then the notary spoke:—

"Mademoiselle has but to sign here," he repeated.

He indicated the exact spot, dipped the pen in the ink, and handed it to Denise. She took the pen and half turned towards Lory, as if she knew that he would be the next to speak and wished him to understand once and for all that he would speak in vain.

"Mademoiselle cannot sign there," he said.

Denise dipped the pen into the ink again, but she did not sign.

"Why not?" she asked without looking round, her hand still resting on the paper.

"Because," answered Lory, addressing her directly, "Perucca is not yours to sell. It is mine."

Denise turned and looked straight at Colonel Gilbert. She had never been quite sure of him. He had never appeared to her to be quite in earnest. His face showed no surprise now. He had known this all along, and did not even take the trouble to feign astonishment. The notary gave a polite, incredulous, legal laugh.

"That is an old story, Monsieur le Comte."

At which point Susini so far forgot himself as to make use of a rude local method of showing contempt in pretending to spit upon the notary's floor.

"It is as old as you please," answered Lory, half turning towards Gilbert, who in his turn made a gesture in the direction of the notary, as if to say that the lawyer had received his instructions and knew how to act.

"Of course," said the notary in a judicial voice, "we are aware that the conveyance of the Perucca estate by the late Count de Vasselot to the late Mattei Perucca lacked formality; many conveyances in Corsica lacked formality in the beginning of the century. In many cases possession is the only title-deed. We can point to a possession lasting over many years, which carries the more weight from the fact that the late count and his neighbour Monsieur Perucca were notoriously on bad terms. If the count had been able, he would no doubt have evicted from Perucca a neighbour so unsympathetic."

"You seem," said de Vasselot, quickly, "to be prepared for my objection."

The notary spread out his hands in a gesture that conveyed assent.

"And if I had not come?"

"I regret to say, Monsieur le Comte, that your presence here bears little upon the transaction in hand. You are only a witness. Mademoiselle will no doubt complete the document now."

And the notary again handed Denise a pen.

"Hardly upon a title-deed which consists of possession only."

"Pardon me, but you have even less," said the notary. "If I may remind you of it, you have probably no title-deeds to Vasselot itself since the burning of the chateau."

"There you are wrong," answered Lory, quietly. And the abbe snapped both fingers and thumbs in a double-barrelled feu de joie.

"The count may have possessed title-deeds before his death, thirty years ago," said the notary, with that polite patience in argument which the certain winner alone can compass.

Then the colonel's quiet voice broke into the conversation. His manner was politely indifferent, and seemed to plead for peace at any cost.

"I should much like to be done with these formalities," he said—"if I may be allowed to suggest a little promptitude. The troops are moving, as you have heard. In an hour's time I sail for Marseilles with these men. Let us finish with the signatures."

"Let us, on the contrary, delay signing until the war is over," suggested Lory.

"You cannot bring your father to life again, monsieur, and you cannot manufacture title-deeds. Your father, the notary tells us, has been dead thirty years, and the Chateau de Vasselot has been burnt with all the papers in it. You have no case at all."

Lory was unbuttoning his tunic, awkwardly with one hand.

"But the notary is wrong," he said. "The Chateau de Vasselot was burnt, it is true, but here are the title-deeds. My father did not die thirty years ago, but yesterday morning, in my arms."

Gilbert smiled gently. His innate politeness obviously forbade him to laugh at this absurd story.

"Then where has he been all these years?" he inquired with a good-humoured patience.

"In the Chateau de Vasselot."

There was a dead silence for a moment, broken at length by a movement on the part of Mademoiselle Brun. In her abrupt way she struck herself on the forehead as a fool.

"Yes," testified Susini, brusquely, "that is where he has been."

Denise remembered ever afterwards, that Lory did not look at her at this moment of his complete justification. It was now, and only for a moment, that Colonel Gilbert lost his steady imperturbability. From the time that Lory de Vasselot entered the room he had known that he had inevitably failed. From that instant the only question in his mind had been that of how much his enemies knew. It could not be chance that brought de Vasselot, and the Abbe Susini, and Mademoiselle Brun together to meet him at that time. He had been out-manoeuvred by some one of the three, and he shrewdly suspected by whom. There was nothing to do but face it—and he faced it with a calm audacity. He simply ignored mademoiselle's blinking glance. He met de Vasselot's quick eyes without fear, and smiled coolly in the abbe's fiery face. But when Denise turned and looked at him with direct and honest eyes, his own wavered, and for a brief instant he saw himself as Denise saw him—the bitterest moment of his life. The esteem of the many is nothing compared to the esteem of one.

In a moment he recovered himself and turned towards Lory with his lazy smile.

"Even to a romance there must be some motive," he said. "One naturally wonders why your father should allow his enemy to keep possession of a house and estate which were not his, and why he himself should remain concealed in the Chateau de Vasselot."

"That is the affair of my father. There was that between him and Mattei Perucca, which neither you nor I, monsieur, have any business to investigate. There are the title-deeds. You have a certain right to look at them. You are therefore at liberty to satisfy yourself that you cannot buy the Perucca estate from Mademoiselle Lange, because it does not belong to Mademoiselle Lange, and never has belonged to her! A fact of which you may have been aware."

"You seem to know much."

"I know more than you suspect," answered de Vasselot. "I know, for instance, your reason for desiring to buy land on the western slope of Monte Torre."

"Ah?"

By way of reply, de Vasselot laid upon the table in front of Colonel Gilbert, the nugget no larger than a pigeon's egg, that Mademoiselle Brun had found in the debris of the landslip. The colonel looked at it, and gave a short laugh. He was too indolent a man to feel an acute curiosity. But there were many questions he would have liked to ask at that moment. He knew that de Vasselot was only the spokesman of another who deliberately remained in the background. Lory had not found the gold, he had not pieced together with the patience of a clocksmith the wheels within wheels that Colonel Gilbert had constructed through the careful years. The whole story had been handed to him whom it most concerned, complete in itself like a barrister's brief, and de Vasselot was not setting it forth with much skill, but bluntly, simply and generously like a soldier.

"Surely I have said enough," were his next words, and it is possible that the colonel and Mademoiselle Brun alone understood the full meaning of the words.

"Yes, monsieur," said Gilbert at length, "I think you have."

And he moved towards the door in an odd, sidelong way. He had taken only three steps, when he swung round on his heel with a sharp exclamation. The Abbe Susini, with blazing eyes—half mad with rage—had flown at him like a terrier.

"Ah!" said the colonel, catching him by the two wrists, and holding him at arm's length with steady northern nerve and muscle. "I know you Corsicans too well to turn my back to one."

He threw the abbe back, so that the little man fell heavily against the table; Susini recovered himself with the litheness of a wild animal, but when he flew at the closed door again it was Denise who stood in front of it.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

GOLD.

"I do believe yourself against yourself, And will henceforward rather die than doubt."

All eyes were now turned on the notary, who was hurriedly looking through the papers thrown down before him by Lory.

"They have passed through my hands before, when I was a youth, in connection with a boundary dispute," he said, as if to explain his apparent hastiness. "They are all here—they are correct, monsieur."

He was a very quick man, and folding the papers as he spoke, he tied them together with the faded pink tape which had been fingered by three generations of Vasselots. He laid the packet on the table close to Lory's hand. Then he glanced at Denise and fell into thought, arranging in his mind that which he had to say to her.

"It is one of those cases, mademoiselle," he said at length, "common enough in Corsica, where a verbal agreement has never been confirmed in writing. Men who have been friends, become enemies so easily in this country. I cannot tell you upon what terms Mattei Perucca lived in the Casa. No one can tell you that. All that we know is that we have no title-deeds—and that monsieur has them. The Casa may be yours, but you cannot prove it. Such a case tried in a law court in Corsica would go in favour of the litigant who possessed the greater number of friends in the locality. It would go in your favour if it could be tried here. But it would need to go to France. And there we could only look for justice, and justice is on the side of monsieur."

He apologized, as it were, for justice, of which he made himself the representative in that room. Then he turned towards de Vasselot.

"Monsieur is well within his rights—" he said, significantly, "—if he insist on them."

"I insist on them," replied Lory, who was proud of Denise's pride.

And Denise laughed.

The notary turned and looked curiously at her.

"Mademoiselle is able to be amused."

"I was thinking of the Rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris," she said, and the explanation left the lawyer more puzzled than before. She took up her gloves and drew them on.

"Then I am rendered penniless, monsieur?" she asked the notary.

"By me," answered Lory. And even the notary was silent. It is hard to silence a man who lives by his tongue. But there were here, it seemed, understandings and misunderstandings which the lawyer failed to comprehend.

The Abbe Susini had crossed the room and was whispering something hurriedly to Mademoiselle Brun, who acquiesced curtly and rather angrily. She had the air of the man at the wheel, to whom one must not speak. For she was endeavouring rather nervously to steer two high-sailed vessels through those shoals and quicksands that must be passed by all who set out in quest of love.

Then the abbe turned impulsively to Lory.

"Mademoiselle must be told about the gold—she must be told," he said.

"I had forgotten the gold," answered Lory, quite truthfully.

"You have forgotten everything, except the eyes of mademoiselle," the abbe muttered to himself as he went back to his place near the window. De Vasselot took up the packet of papers and began to untie the tape awkwardly with his one able hand. He was so slow that Mademoiselle Brun leant forward and assisted him. Denise bit her lip and pushed a chair towards him with her foot. He sat down and unfolded a map coloured and drawn in queer angles. This he laid upon the table, and, by a gesture, called Mademoiselle Brun and Denise to look at it. The abbe took a pencil from the notary's table, and after studying the map for a moment he drew a careful circle in the centre of it, embracing portions of the various colours and of the two estates described respectively as Perucca and Vasselot.

"That," he said to Lory, "is the probable radius of it so far as the expert could tell me on his examination of the ground yesterday."

Lory turned to Denise.

"You must think us all mad—at our games of cross-purposes," he said. "It appears that there is gold in the two estates—and gold has accounted for most human madnesses. Where the abbe has drawn this line there lies the gold—beyond the dreams of avarice, mademoiselle. And Colonel Gilbert was the only man who knew it. So you understand Gilbert, at all events."

"You did not know it when I asked your advice in Paris?"

"I learnt it two hours ago from the Abbe Susini; so I hastened here to claim the whole of it," answered Lory, with a laugh.

But Denise was grave.

"But you knew that Perucca was never mine," she persisted.

"Yes, I knew that, but then Perucca was valueless. So soon as I knew its value, I reclaimed it."

"I warn Monsieur de Vasselot that such frankness is imprudent; he may regret it," put in the notary with a solemn face. And Denise gave him a glance of withering pity. The poor man, it seemed, was quite at sea.

"Thank you," laughed de Vasselot. "I only judge myself as the world will judge me. You were very rich, mademoiselle, and I have made you very poor."

Denise glanced at him, and said nothing. And de Vasselot's breath came rather quickly.

"But the Casa Perucca is at your disposal so long as you may choose to live there," he continued. "My father is to be buried at Olmeta to-morrow, but I cannot even remain to attend the funeral. So I need not assure you that I do not want the Casa Perucca for myself."

"Where are you going?" asked Denise, bluntly.

"Back to France. I have heard news that makes it necessary for me to return. Gambetta has escaped from Paris in a balloon, and is organizing affairs at Tours. We may yet make a defence."

"You?" said Mademoiselle Brun. Into the one word she threw, or attempted to throw, a world of contempt, as she looked him up and down, with his arm in a sling, and his wounded leg bent awkwardly to one side; but her eyes glittered. This was a man after her own heart.

"One has one's head left, mademoiselle," answered Lory. Then he turned to the window, and held up one hand. "Listen!" he added.

It was the music of a second regiment marching down the Boulevard du Palais, towards the port, and, as it approached, it was rendered almost inaudible by the shouts of the men themselves, and of the crowd that cheered them. De Vasselot went to the window and opened it, his face twitching, and his eyes shining with excitement.

"Listen to them," he said. "Listen to them. Ah! but it is good to hear them."

Instinctively the others followed him, and stood grouped in the open window, looking down into the street. The band was now passing, clanging out the Marseillaise, and the fickle people cheered the new tricolour, as it fluttered in the wind. Some one looked up, and perceived de Vasselot's uniform.

"Come, mon capitaine," he cried; "you are coming with us?"

Lory laughed, and shouted back—Yes—I am coming."

"See," cried a sergeant, who was gathering recruits as he went—"see! there is one who has fought, and is going to fight again! Vive la France, mes enfants! Who comes? Who comes?"

And the soldiers, looking up, gave a cheer for the wounded man who was to lead them. They passed on, followed by a troup of young men and boys, half of whom ultimately stepped on board the steamer at the last moment, and went across the sea to fight for France.

De Vasselot turned away from the window, and went towards the table, where the papers lay in confusion. The abbe took them up, and began to arrange them in order.

"And the estate and the gold?" he said; "who manages that, since you are going to fight?"

"You," replied de Vasselot, "since you cannot fight. There is no one but you in Corsica who can manage it. There is none but you to understand these people."

"All the world knows who manages half of Corsica," put in Mademoiselle Brun, looking fiercely at the abbe. But the abbe only stamped his foot impatiently.

"Woman's gossip," he muttered, as he shook the papers together. "Yes; I will manage your estate if you like. And if there is gold in the land, I will tear it out. And there is gold. The amiable colonel is not the man to have made a mistake on that point. I shall like the work. It will be an occupation. It will serve to fill one's life."

"Your life is not empty," said mademoiselle.

The abbe turned and looked at her, his glittering eyes meeting her twinkling glance.

"It is a priest's life," he said. "Come," he added, turning to the lawyer—"come, Mr. the Notary, into your other room, and write me out a form of authority for the Count de Vasselot to sign. We have had enough of verbal agreements on this estate."

And, taking the notary by the arm, he went to the door. On the threshold he turned, and looked at Mademoiselle Brun.

"A priest's life," he said, "or an old woman's. It is the same thing."

And Lory was left alone with mademoiselle and Denise. The window was still open, and from the port the sound of the military music reached their ears faintly. Mademoiselle rose, and went to the window, where she stood looking out. Her eyes were dim as she looked across the sordid street, but her lips were firm, and the hands that rested on the window-sill quite steady. She had played consistently a strong and careful game. Was she going to win or lose? She held that, next to being a soldier, it is good to be a soldier's wife and the mother of fighting men. And when she thought of the Rue du Cherche-Midi, she was not able to be amused, as the notary had said of Denise.

There was a short silence in the notary's office. De Vasselot was fingering the hilt of his long cavalry sword reflectively. After a moment he glanced across at Denise. He was placed as it were between her and the sword. And it was to the sword that he gave his allegiance.

"You see," he said, in a low voice, "I must go."

"Yes, you must go," she answered. She held her lip for a moment between her teeth. Then she looked steadily at him. "Go!" she said.

He rose from his chair and looked towards Mademoiselle Bran's back. At the rattle of his scabbard against the chair, mademoiselle turned.

"There is a horse waiting in the street below," she said—"the great horse that Colonel Gilbert rides. It is waiting for you, I suppose."

"I suppose so," said Lory, who went to the window and looked curiously down. Gilbert was certainly an odd man. He had left in anger, and had left his horse for Lory to ride. He waited a moment, and then held out his hand to Mademoiselle Brun. All three seemed to move and speak under a sort of oppression. It was one of those moments that impress themselves indelibly on the memory—a moment when words are suddenly useless—when the memory of an attitude and of a silence remains all through life.

"Good-bye, mademoiselle," said Lory, with a sudden cheerfulness; "we shall meet in France next time."

Mademoiselle Brun held out her shrinking little hand.

"Yes, in France," she answered.

To Denise, Lory said nothing. He merely shook hands with her. Then he walked towards the door, haltingly. He used his sword like a walking stick, with his one able hand. Denise had to open the door for him. He was on the threshold, when Mademoiselle Brun stopped him.

"Monsieur de Vasselot," she said, "when the soldiers went past, you and Colonel Gilbert spoke together hurriedly; I saw you. You are not going to fight—you two?"

"Yes, mademoiselle, we are going to fight—the Prussians. We are friends while we have a common enemy. When there is no enemy—who knows? He has received a great appointment in France, and has offered me a post under him. And I have accepted it."



CHAPTER XXIX.

A BALANCED ACCOUNT.

"Let the end try the man."

Bad news, it is said, travels fast. But in France good news travels faster, and it is the evil tidings that lag behind. It is part of a Frenchman's happy nature to believe that which he wishes to be true. And although the news travelled rapidly, that Gambetta—that spirit of an unquenchable hope—had escaped from Paris with full power to conduct the war from Tours, the notification that the army of de la Motterouge had melted away before the advance of von der Tann, did not reach Lory de Vasselot until he passed to the north of Marseilles with his handful of men.

That a general, so stricken in years as de la Motterouge, should have been chosen for the command of the first army of the Loire, spoke eloquently enough of the straits in which France found herself at this time. For this was the only army of the Government of National Defence, the debris of Sedan, the hope of France. General de la Motterouge had fought in the Crimea: "Peu de feu et beaucoup de bayonette" had been his maxim then. But the Crimea was fifteen years earlier, and de la Motterouge was now an old man. Before the superior numbers and the perfectly drilled and equipped army of von der Tann, what could he do but retreat?

Thus, on their arrival in France, Colonel Gilbert and Lory de Vasselot were greeted with the news that Orleans had fallen into the hands of the enemy. It was the same story of incompetence pitted against perfect organization—order and discipline meeting and vanquishing ill-considered bravery. All the world knows now that France should have capitulated after Sedan. But the world knows also that Paris need never have fallen, could France only have produced one mediocre military genius in this her moment of need. The capital was indeed surrounded, cut off from all the world; but the surrounding line was so thin that good generalship from within could have pierced it, and there was an eager army of brave men waiting to join issue from the Loire.

It was to this army of the Loire that Colonel Gilbert and de Vasselot were accredited. And it was an amateur army. It came from every part of France, and in its dress it ran to the picturesque. Franctireurs de Cannes rubbed shoulders with Mobiles from the far northern departments. Spahis and Zouaves from Africa bivouacked with fair-haired men whose native tongue was German. There were soldiers who had followed the drum all their lives, and there were soldiers who did not know how to load their chassepots. There were veteran non-commissioned officers hurriedly drilling embryo priests; and young gentlemen from St. Cyr trying to form in line grey-headed peasants who wore sabots. There were fancy soldiers and picturesque fighters, who joined a regiment because its costume appealed to their conception of patriotism. And if a man prefers to fight for his country in the sombrero and cloak of a comic-opera brigand, what boots it so long as he fights well? It must be remembered, moreover, that it is quite as painful to die under a sombrero as under a plainer covering. A man who wears such clothes sees the picturesque side of life, and may therefore hold existence as dear as more practical persons who take little heed of their appearance. For when the time came these gentlemen fought well enough, and ruined their picturesque get-up with their own blood. And if they shouted very loud in the cafe, they shouted, Heaven knows, as loud on the battle-field, when they faced those hated, deadly, steady Bavarians, and died shouting.

Of such material was the army of the Loire; and when Chanzy came to them from North Africa—that Punjaub of this stricken India from whence the strong men came when they were wanted—when Chanzy came to lead them, they commanded the respect of all the world. For these were men fighting a losing fight, without hope of victory, for the honour of France. They fought with a deadly valour against superior numbers behind entrenchments; they endeavoured to turn the Germans out of insignificant villages after allowing them time to fortify the position. They fought in the open against an invisible enemy superior in numbers, superior in artillery, and here and there they gained a pitiful little hard-earned advantage.

De Vasselot, still unable to go to the front, was put to train these men in a little quiet town on the Loire, where he lodged with a shoemaker, and worked harder than any man in that sunny place had ever worked before. It was his business to gather together such men as could sit a horse, and teach them to be cavalry soldiers. But first of all he taught them that the horse was an animal possessing possibilities far beyond their most optimistic conception of that sagacious but foolish quadruped. He taught them a hundred tricks of heel and wrist, by which a man may convey to a horse that which he wishes him to do. He made the horse and the man understand each other, and when they did this he sent them to the front.

In the meantime France fed herself upon false news and magnified small successes into great victories. Gambetta made many eloquent speeches, and issued fiery manifestoes to the soldiers; but speeches and manifestoes do not win battles. Paris hoped all things of the army of the Loire, and the army of the Loire expected a successful sortie from Paris. And those men of iron, Bismarck, Moltke, and the emperor, sat at Versailles and waited. While they waited the winter came.

De Vasselot, who had daily attempted to use his wounded limbs, at length found himself fit for active service, and got permission to join the army. Gilbert was no longer a colonel. He was a general now, and commanded a division which had already made its mark upon that man of misfortune—von der Tann, a great soldier with no luck.

One frosty morning de Vasselot rode out of the little town upon the Loire at the head of a handful of his newly trained men. He was going to take up his appointment: for he held the command of the whole of the cavalry of General Gilbert's division. These were days of quick promotion, of comet-like reputations and of great careers cut short. De Vasselot had written to Jane de Melide the previous night, telling her of his movements in the immediate future, of his promotion, of his hopes. One hope which he did not mention was that Denise might be at Frejus, and would see the letter. Indeed, it was written to Denise, though it was addressed to the Baronne de Melide.

Then he went blithely enough out to fight. For he was quite a simple person, as many soldiers and many horse-lovers are. He was also that which is vaguely called a sportsman, and was ready to take a legitimate risk not only cheerfully, but with joy.

"It is my only chance of making her care for me," he said to himself. He may have been right or wrong. There is a wisdom which is the exclusive possession of the simple. And Lory may have known that it is wiser to store up in a woman's mind memories that will bear honour and respect in the future, than to make appeal to her vanity in the present. For the love that is won by vanity is itself vanity.

He said he was fighting for France, but it was also for Denise that he fought. France and Denise had got inextricably mixed in his mind, and both spelt honour. His only method of making Denise love him was to make himself worthy of her—an odd, old-fashioned theory of action, and the only one that enables two people to love each other all their lives.

In this spirit he joined the army of the Loire before his wounds had healed. He did not know that Denise loved him already, that she had with a woman's instinct divined in him the spirit, quite apart from the opportunity, to do great things. And most men have to content themselves with being loved for this spirit and not for the performance which, somehow, is so seldom accomplished.

And that which kept them apart was for their further happiness; it was even for the happiness of Denise in case Lory never came back to her. For the majority of people get what they want before they have learnt to desire. It is only the lives of the few which are taken in hand and so fashioned that there is a waiting and an attainment at last.

Lory and Denise were exploring roads which few are called upon to tread—dark roads with mud and stones and many turnings, and each has a separate road to tread and must find the way alone. But if Fate is kind they may meet at the end without having gone astray, or, which is rarer, without being spattered by the mud. For those mud-stains will never rub off and never be forgotten. Which is a hard saying, but a true one.

Lory had left Denise without any explanation of these things. He had never thought of sparing her by the simple method of neglecting his obvious duty. In his mind she was the best of God's creations—a woman strong to endure. That was sufficient for him; and he turned his attention to his horses and his men. He never saw the background to his own life. It is usually the onlooker who sees that, just as a critic sees more in a picture than the painter ever put there.

Lory hardly knew of these questions himself. He only half thought of them, and Denise, far away in Provence, thought the other half. Which is love.

Lory took part in the fighting after Orleans and risked his life freely, as he ever did when opportunity offered. He was more than an officer, he was a leader. And it is better to show the way than to point it out. Although his orders came from General Gilbert, he had never met his commanding officer since quitting the little sunny town on the Loire where he had recovered from his wounds. It was only after Chateaudun and after the Coulmiers that they met, and it was only in a small affair after all, the attempted recapture of a village taken and hurriedly fortified by the Germans. It was a night-attack. The army of the Loire was rather fond of night-fighting; for the night equalizes matters between discipline and mere bravery. Also, if your troops are bad, they may as well be beaten in the dark as in the daylight. The survivors come away with a better heart. Also, discipline is robbed of half its strength by the absence of daylight.

Cavalry, it is known, are no good at night; for horses are nervous and will whinny to friend or foe when silence is imperative. And yet Lory received orders to take part in this night-attack. Stranger things than that were ordered and carried out in the campaign on the Loire. All the rules of warfare were outraged, and those warriors who win and lose battles on paper cannot explain many battles that were lost and won during that winter.

There was a moon, and the ground was thinly covered with snow. It was horribly cold when the men turned out and silently rode to the spot indicated in the orders. These were quite clear, and they meant death. De Vasselot had practically to lead a forlorn hope. A fellow-officer laughed when the instructions were read to him.

"The general must be an enemy of yours," he said. And the thought had not occurred to Lory before.

"No," he replied, "he is a sportsman."

"It is poor sport for us," muttered the officer, riding away.

But Lory was right. For when the moment came and he was waiting with his troopers behind a farm building, a scout rode in to say that reinforcements were coming. As these rode across the open in the moonlight, it was apparent that they were not numerous; for cavalry was scarce since Eeichshofen. They were led by a man on a big horse, who was comfortably muffled up in a great fur-coat.

"De Vasselot," he said in a pleasant voice, as Lory went forward to meet him. "De Vasselot, I have brought a few more to help you. We must make a great splash on this side, while the real attack is on the other. We must show them the way—you and I." And Gilbert laughed quietly.

It was not the moment for greetings. Lory gave a few hurried orders in a low voice, and the new-comers fell into line. They were scarcely in place when the signal was given. A moment later they were galloping across the open towards the village—a sight to lift any heart above the thought of death.

Then the fire opened—a flash of flame like fork-lightning running along the ground—a crashing volley which mowed the assailants like a scythe. Lory and Gilbert were both down, side by side. Lory, active as a cat, was on his legs in a moment and leapt away from the flying heels of his wounded horse. A second volley blazed into the night, and Lory dropped a second time. He moved a little, and cursed his luck. With difficulty he raised himself on his elbow.

"Gilbert," he said, "Gilbert."

He dragged himself towards the general, who was lying on his back.

"Gilbert," he said, with his mouth close to the other's ear, "we should have been friends, you know, all the same, but the luck was against us. It is not for one to judge the other. Do you hear? Do you hear?"

Gilbert lay quite still, staring at the moon with his easy, contemplative smile. His right arm was raised and his great sabre held aloft to show the way, as he had promised, now pointed silently to heaven.

Lory raised himself again, the blood running down his sleeve over his right hand.

"Gilbert," he repeated, "do you understand?" Then he fell unconscious across the general's breast.



CHAPTER XXX.

THE BEGINNING AND THE END.

"I gave—no matter what I gave—I win."

The careful student will find in the back numbers of the Deutsche Rundschau, that excellent family magazine, the experiences of a German military doctor with the army of General von der Tann. The story is one touched by that deep and occasionally maudlin spirit of sentimentality which finds a home in hearts that beat for the Fatherland. Its most thrilling page is the description of the finding, by the narrator, of the body of a general officer during a sharp night engagement, across which body was lying a wounded cavalry colonel, who had evidently devoted himself to the defence of his comrade in arms.

The reminiscent doctor makes good use of such compound words as "brother-love" and "though-superior-in-rank-yet-comrade-in-arms-and- companions-in-death-affectionate," which linguistic facility enables the German writer to build up as he progresses in his narration words of a phenomenal calibre, and bowl the reader over, so to speak, at a long range. He finishes by mentioning that the general was named Gilbert, a man of colossal engineering skill, while the wounded officer was the Count Lory de Vasselot, grandson of one of Napoleon's most dashing cavalry leaders. The doctor finishes right there, as the Americans say, and quite forgets to note the fact that he himself picked up de Vasselot under a spitting cross-fire, carried him into his own field hospital and there tended him. Which omission proves that to find a brave and kind heart it is not necessary to consider what outer uniform may cover, or guttural tongue distinguish, the inner man.

Lory was shot in two places again, and the doctors who attended him laughed when they saw the old wounds hardly yet healed. He would be lame for years, they said, perhaps for life. He had a bullet in his right shoulder and another had shattered his ankle. Neither was dangerous, but his fighting days were done, at all events for this campaign.

"You will not fight against us again," said the doctor, with a smile on his broad Saxon features, and in execrable French, which was not improved by the scissors that he held between his lips.

"Not in this war, perhaps," answered the patient, hopefully.

Again the tide of war moved on; and, daily, the cold increased. But its chill was nothing to that cold, slow death of hope that numbed all France. For it became momentarily more apparent that those at the head of affairs were incompetent—that the man upon whom hope had been placed was nothing but a talker, a man of words, an orator, a wind-bag. France, who has usually led the way in the world's progress, had entered upon that period of words—that Age of Talk—in which she still labours, and which must inevitably be the ruin of all her greatness.

For two weeks Lory lay in the improvised German field hospital in that remote village, and made the astounding progress towards recovery which is the happy privilege of the light-hearted. It is said among soldiers that a foe is no longer a foe when he is down, and de Vasselot found himself among friends.

The German doctor wrote a letter for him.

"It will be good practice for my French," said the artless Teuton, quite frankly. And the letter was sent, but never reached its destination. Lory could learn no news, however. In war there are, not two, but three sides to a question. Each combatant has one, and Truth has the third, which she often locks up for ever in her quiet breast.

At last, one morning quite early, a horseman dismounted at the door of the house in the village street, where the hospital flag hung lazily in the still, frosty air "It is a civilian," said an attendant, in astonishment, so rare was the sight of a plain coat at this time. There followed a conversation in muffled voices in the entrance hall; not a French conversation in many tones of voice—but a quiet Teutonic talk as between Germans and Englishmen. Then the door opened, and a man came into the room, removing a fur coat as he came. He was a tall, impassive man, well dressed, wearing a tweed suit and a single eye-glass. He might have been an Englishman. He was, however, the Baron de Melide, and his manner had that repose which belongs to the new aristocracy of France and to the shreds that remain, here and there, of the old.

"Left my ambulance to subordinates," he explained as he shook Lory's hand. "Humanity is an excellent quality, but one's friends come first. It has taken me some time to find you. Have procured your parole for you. You are quite useless, they say,"—the baron eyed Lory with a calm and experienced glance as he spoke—"so they release you on parole. They are not generous, but they have an enormous common sense."

The doctor, who understood French, laughed good-naturedly, and the baron twisted his waxed moustache and looked slightly uncomfortable. He was conscious of having said the wrong thing as usual.

And all the while de Vasselot was talking and laughing, and commenting on his friend's appearance and clothes, and goodness of heart—all in a breath, as was his manner. Also he found time to ask a hundred questions which the stupid would take at least a week to answer, but his answer to each would be the right one.

It was during the great cold of the early days of January, that the baron and Lory turned their backs on that bitter valley of the Loire. They had a cross-journey to Lyons, and there joined a main line train, in which they fell asleep to awake in the brilliant sunshine, amid the cool grey-greens, the bare rocks and dark cypresses of the south. After Marseilles the journey became tedious again.

"Heavens!" cried Lory, impatiently, "what a delay! Why need they stop at this little station at all?"

The baron made no reply just then. The train travelled five miles while he stared thoughtfully at the grey hills. It was six months since he had seen the vivacious lady who was supposed by this one-eyed world to rule him.

"After all," he said at length, "Frejus is a little station."

For the baron was a philosopher.

When at last they reached the quiet tree-grown station, where even to this day so few trains stop, and so insignificant a business is transacted, they found the Baroness de Melide on the platform awaiting them. She was in black, as were all Frenchwomen at this time. She gave an odd little laugh at the sight of her husband, and immediately held her lip between her teeth, as if she were afraid that her laugh might change to something else.

"Ah!" she said, "how hungry you both look—and yet you must have lunched at Toulon."

She looked curiously from one drawn face to the other as the baron helped Lory to descend.

"Hungry," she repeated with a reflective nod. "Perhaps your precious France does not satisfy."

And as she led the way to the carriage there was a gleam, almost fierce, of triumph in her eyes.

The arrival at the chateau was uneventful. Mademoiselle Brun said no word at all; but stood a little aside with folded hands and watched. Denise, young and slim in her black dress, shook hands and said that she was afraid the travellers must be tired after their long journey.

"Why should Denise think that I was tired?" the baron inquired later, as he was opening his letters in the study.

"Mon ami," replied the baroness, "she did not think you were tired, and did not care whether you were or not."

Lory had the same room assigned to him that opened on to the verandah where heliotrope and roses and Bougainvilliers contended for the mastery. Outside his windows were placed the same table and long chair, and beside the last the other chair where Denise had sat—which had been placed there by Fate. The butler was, it appeared, a man of few ideas. He had arranged everything as before.

After his early coffee Lory went to the verandah and lay down by that empty chair. It was a brilliant morning, with a light keen air which has not its equal all the world over. The sun was powerful enough to draw the scent from the pinewoods, and the sea-breeze swept it up towards the mountains. Lory waited alone in the verandah all the morning. After luncheon the baron assisted him back to his long chair, and all the party came there and drank coffee. Coffee was one of Mademoiselle Brun's solaces in life. "It makes existence bearable," she said—"if it is hot enough." But she finished her cup quickly and went away. The baron was full of business. He received a score of letters during the day. At any moment the preliminaries of peace might now be signed. He had not even time for a cigarette. The baroness sat for some minutes looking at Lory, endeavouring to make him meet her shrewd eyes; but he was looking out over the plain of Les Arcs. Denise had not sat down, but was standing rather restlessly at the edge of the verandah near the heliotrope which clambered up the supports. She had picked a piece of the delicate flower and was idly smelling it.

At last the baroness rose and walked away without any explanation at all. After a few minutes, which passed slowly in silence, Denise turned and came slowly towards Lory. The chair had never been occupied. She sat down and looked away from him. Her face, still delicately sunburnt, was flushed. Then she turned, and her eyes as they met his were stricken with fear.

"I did not understand," she said. And she must have been referring to their conversation in that same spot months before. She was either profoundly ignorant of the world or profoundly indifferent to it. She ought, of course, to have made some safe remark about the weather. She ought to have distrusted Lory. But he seemed to know her meaning without any difficulty.

"I think a great many people never understand, mademoiselle."

"It has taken me a long time—nearly four months," said Denise, reflectively. "But I understood quite suddenly at Bastia—when the soldiers passed the notary's office. I understood then what life is and what it is meant to be."

Lory looked up at her for a moment,

"That is because you are nearer heaven than I am," he said.

"But it was you who taught me, not heaven," said Denise. "You said—well, you remember what you said, perhaps—and then immediately after you denied me the first thing I asked you. You knew what was right, and I did not. You have always known what was right, and have always done it. I see that now as I look back. So I have learnt my lesson, you see." She concluded with a grave smile. Life is full of gravity, but love is the gravest part of it.

"Not from me," persisted Lory.

"Yes, from you. Suppose you had done what I asked you. Suppose you had not gone to the war again, what would have become of our lives?"

"Perhaps," suggested Lory, "we have both to learn from each other. Perhaps it is a long lesson and will take all our lives. I think we are only beginning it. And perhaps I opened the book when I told you that I loved you, here in the verandah!"

Denise turned and looked at him with a smile full of pity, and touched with that contempt which women sometimes bestow upon men for understanding so little of life.

"Mon Dieu!" she said, "I loved you long before that."

The sun was setting behind the distant Esterelles—those low and lonesome mountains clad from foot to summit in pine—when Mademoiselle Brun came out into the garden. She had to pass across the verandah, and instinctively turned to look towards that end of it where de Vasselot had come a second time to lie in the sun and heal his wounds—a man who had fought a good fight.

Denise was holding out a spray of heliotrope towards Lory and he had taken, not the flower, but her hand: and thus without a word and unconsciously they told their whole story to mademoiselle.

The little old woman walked on without showing that she had seen and understood. She was not an expansive person.

She sat down at the corner of the lowest terrace and with blinking eyes stared across the great plain of Les Arcs, where north and south meet, where the palm tree and the pine grow side by side, towards the Esterelles and the setting sun. The sky was clear, but for a few little puffs of cloud low down towards the west, like a flock of sheep ready to go home, waiting for the gate to open.

Mademoiselle's thin lips were moving as if she were whispering to the God whom she served with such a remarkable paucity of words. It may have been that she was muttering a sort of grim Nunc Dimittis—she who had seen so many wars. "Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace."

THE END