“Wasn’t it Melanie who was leaving here as I came along?” asked Laguitte.

Burle shrugged his shoulders.

“Yes,” he mumbled.  “She has been dunning me for two hundred francs, but she can’t screw ten out of me—­not even tenpence.”

“Indeed!” said the major, just to try him.  “I heard that you had made up with her.”

“I?  Certainly not.  I have done with the likes of her for good.”

Laguitte went away, feeling greatly perplexed.  Where had the five hundred and forty-five francs gone?  Had the idiot taken to drinking or gambling?  He decided to pay Burle a surprise visit that very evening at his own house, and maybe by questioning his mother he might learn something.  However, during the afternoon his leg became very painful; latterly he had been feeling in ill-health, and he had to use a stick so as not to limp too outrageously.  This stick grieved him sorely, and he declared with angry despair that he was now no better than a pensioner.  However, toward the evening, making a strong effort, he pulled himself out of his armchair and, leaning heavily on his stick, dragged himself through the darkness to the Rue des Recollets, which he reached about nine o’clock.  The street door was still unlocked, and on going up he stood panting on the third landing, when he heard voices on the upper floor.  One of these voices was Burle’s, so he fancied, and out of curiosity he ascended another flight of stairs.  Then at the end of a passage on the left he saw a ray of light coming from a door which stood ajar.  As the creaking of his boots resounded, this door was sharply closed, and he found himself in the dark.

“Some cook going to bed!” he muttered angrily.  “I’m a fool.”

All the same he groped his way as gently as possible to the door and listened.  Two people were talking in the room, and he stood aghast, for it was Burle and that fright Rose!  Then he listened, and the conversation he heard left him no doubt of the awful truth.  For a moment he lifted his stick as if to beat down the door.  Then he shuddered and, staggering back, leaned against the wall.  His legs were trembling under him, while in the darkness of the staircase he brandished his stick as if it had been a saber.

What was to be done?  After his first moment of passion there had come thoughts of the poor old lady below.  And these made him hesitate.  It was all over with the captain now; when a man sank as low as that he was hardly worth the few shovelfuls of earth that are thrown over carrion to prevent them from polluting the atmosphere.  Whatever might be said of Burle, however much one might try to shame him, he would assuredly begin the next day.  Ah, heavens, to think of it!  The money!  The honor of the army!  The name of Burle, that respected name, dragged through the mire!  By all that was holy this could and should not be!

Presently the major softened.  If he had only possessed five hundred and forty-five francs!  But he had not got such an amount.  On the previous day he had drunk too much cognac, just like a mere sub, and had lost shockingly at cards.  It served him right—­he ought to have known better!  And if he was so lame he richly deserved it too; by rights, in fact, his leg ought to be much worse.