Cesarine stared all her wonder.  The newspapers trumpeting her husband’s name and not in the satirical tone in which the people hail a disaster to a George Dandin.

“The privately appointed committee which has been for some weeks thoroughly investigating the marvelous invention—­a revolution in truth—­in gunnery, at the Villa Reine-Claude, Montmorency, have deposited a preliminary report at the Ministry of War.  We are not at liberty to state more than the prodigious result.  On a miniature scale, but which could be enlarged from millimetres to miles without, we are assured, affecting the demonstration, it has been proved that the new gun will throw solid shot twelve miles and its special shell nearly fifteen.  The model target was a row of pegs representing piles strongly driven into clay, a little apart, with the interstices filled with racks of stones.  Two of the new-shaped projectiles dropped on this mark, left not enough wood to make a match and enough stone to strike a light upon it, while not a splinter of the missile could be found.  Judge what would happen if they had fallen on a regiment or into a city.  Thanks to the unremitting devotion of this son of France, his country can regard with complacency the monstrous preparations for unprovoked war which a rival realm is ostentatiously making.”

The other journals repeated the paragraph in much the same language.  The evening edition added that the happy inventor would not have to wait long for his reward.  The Emperor, always a connoisseur in artillery, had sent him ten thousand francs from his private purse simply as a faint token of appreciation.  “Those familiar with what, in these rapid times, is the ancient history of Paris, may remember that a stain was attached to the name of Clemenceau.  In his son, it will shine untarnished, and go down to posterity glorious with lustre.”

“What a fool I have been,” thought Cesarine.  “I fled with a silly fellow who had no more sense than to fall into a trap, for a paltry handful of drafts that may not be paid on presentation, and desert a husband who will be one of the millionaire-inventors of his country!”

Reflecting in the night, she radically reversed her programme.

Her uncle had recovered from the stroke but the physician warned him that the next would kill him.  He was happy in the cares of the Lesperons and his grandniece, none of whom would be forgotten when the hour struck for him to leave his worldly goods.  Cesarine could quit him in confidence of a handsome inheritance at not a distant day.

Her flight and absence were commendable in the world’s most censorious eyes.  Only one thought perplexed her:  was it her husband who had officiated at the execution of her gallant?  If so, her lie would not hold.  But in doubt a shameless sinner chooses to brazen it out.

“I should be a confirmed imbecile to let this chance go and not resume my authorized position.  Ah, his time, without infamy, I can preside at the board where the high officials will gladly sit—­I shall have generals at my feet, perhaps a marshal!  Yes, I will go home and brazen it out!”