"Ah, mademoiselle," he said in a tone of courtly deference. "If I could be certain that you did not come here this morning only from a sense of duty to your mother!"

He waited for an answer, imperturbable but inwardly elated. It came in a demure murmur, eyelashes lowered with fascinating effect.

"You mustn't be mechant as well as mad."

And then General D'Hubert made an aggressive movement towards the divan which nothing could check. This piece of furniture was not exactly in the line of the open door. But Madame Leonie, coming back wrapped up in a light cloak and carrying a lace shawl on her arm for Adele to hide her incriminating hair under, had a vague impression of her brother getting-up from his knees.

"Come along, my dear child," she cried from the doorway.

The general, now himself again in the fullest sense, showed the readiness of a resourceful cavalry officer and the peremptoriness of a leader of men.

"You don't expect her to walk to the carriage," he protested. "She isn't fit. I will carry her downstairs."

This he did slowly, followed by his awed and respectful sister. But he rushed back like a whirlwind to wash away all the signs of the night of anguish and the morning of war, and to put on the festive garments of a conqueror before hurrying over to the other house. Had it not been for that, General D'Hubert felt capable of mounting a horse and pursuing his late adversary in order simply to embrace him from excess of happiness. "I owe this piece of luck to that stupid brute," he thought. "This duel has made plain in one morning what might have taken me years to find out—for I am a timid fool. No self-confidence whatever. Perfect coward. And the Chevalier! Dear old man!" General D'Hubert longed to embrace him, too.

The Chevalier was in bed. For several days he was much indisposed. The men of the empire, and the post-revolution young ladies, were too much for him. He got up the day before the wedding, and being curious by nature, took his niece aside for a quiet talk. He advised her to find out from her husband the true story of the affair of honour, whose claim so imperative and so persistent had led her to within an ace of tragedy. "It is very proper that his wife should know. And next month or so will be your time to learn from him anything you ought to know, my dear child."

Later on when the married couple came on a visit to the mother of the bride, Madame la Generale D'Hubert made no difficulty in communicating to her beloved old uncle what she had learned without any difficulty from her husband. The Chevalier listened with profound attention to the end, then took a pinch of snuff, shook the grains of tobacco off the frilled front of his shirt, and said calmly: "And that's all what it was."

"Yes, uncle," said Madame la Generale, opening her pretty eyes very wide. "Isn't it funny? C'est insense—to think what men are capable of."

"H'm," commented the old emigre. "It depends what sort of men. That Bonaparte's soldiers were savages. As a wife, my dear, it is proper for you to believe implicitly what your husband says."

But to Leonie's husband the Chevalier confided his true opinion. "If that's the tale the fellow made up for his wife, and during the honeymoon, too, you may depend on it no one will ever know the secret of this affair."

Considerably later still, General D'Hubert judged the time come, and the opportunity propitious to write a conciliatory letter to General Feraud. "I have never," protested the General Baron D'Hubert, "wished for your death during all the time of our deplorable quarrel. Allow me to give you back in all form your forfeited life. We two, who have been partners in so much military glory, should be friendly to each other publicly."

The same letter contained also an item of domestic information. It was alluding to this last that General Feraud answered from a little village on the banks of the Garonne:

"If one of your boy's names had been Napoleon, or Joseph, or even Joachim, I could congratulate you with a better heart. As you have thought proper to name him Charles Henri Armand I am confirmed in my conviction that you never loved the emperor. The thought of that sublime hero chained to a rock in the middle of a savage ocean makes life of so little value that I would receive with positive joy your instructions to blow my brains out. From suicide I consider myself in honour debarred. But I keep a loaded pistol in my drawer."

Madame la Generale D'Hubert lifted up her hands in horror after perusing that letter.

"You see? He won't be reconciled," said her husband. "We must take care that he never, by any chance, learns where the money he lives on comes from. It would be simply appalling."

"You are a brave homme, Armand," said Madame la Generale appreciatively.

"My dear, I had the right to blow his brains out—strictly speaking. But as I did not we can't let him starve. He has been deprived of his pension for 'breach of military discipline' when he broke bounds to fight his last duel with me. He's crippled with rheumatism. We are bound to take care of him to the end of his days. And, after all, I am indebted to him for the radiant discovery that you loved me a little—you sly person. Ha! Ha! Two miles, running all the way!... It is extraordinary how all through this affair that man has managed to engage my deeper feelings."

THE END