On a drizzling, dismal December morning, then, we formed ourselves in a procession of two abreast, and starting from the Place St. Michel, followed Bibi up his familiar Boulevard to the Cemetery of Montparnasse; and men who would have spurned him yesterday, bared their heads as he passed, and women crossed themselves and muttered prayers.  We must have been about a hundred strong, and quite a quarter of our numbers came from beyond the bridges, responsive to our lettre de faire part.  A student was told off to march with each visitor; and this arrangement proved the means of my being able to supply the missing chapter of Bibi’s story.

The person to whom I found myself assigned was an elderly, military-looking man, with the red rosette in his buttonhole; extremely well-dressed and groomed; erect, ruddy, bright-eyed; with close-cropped white hair, and a drooping white moustache:  the picture of a distinguished, contented, fine old French gentleman:  whom I marvelled a good deal to see in this conjunction.

On our way to the graveyard we spoke but little.  Our business there over, however, he offered me a seat in his carriage, a brougham that had sauntered after us, for the return.  And no sooner was the carriage door closed upon us than he began—­

’I am an old man.  I want to talk.  Will you listen?

’This death, this funeral, have stirred me deeply.  I knew Kasghine years ago in Russia, when we were both young men, he an officer in the Russian army, I an attache to the French Embassy.

’His career has been a very sad one.  It illustrates many sad truths.

’Sometimes—­it is trite to say so—­an act of baseness, a crime of some sort, may be the beginning, the first cause, of a man’s salvation.  It pulls him up, wakes his conscience.  Aghast at what he has done, he reflects, repents, reforms.  That is a comforting circumstance, a token of God’s goodness.

’But what shall we say when the exact opposite happens?  When it is an act of nobility, of splendid heroism, of magnificent self-devotion, that brings to pass a man’s moral downfall?  It is horrible to admit such a thing as possible, is it not?  And yet, the same man who may be capable of one sudden immense act of heroism, may be quite incapable of keeping up the prolonged, daily, yearly struggle with adversity which that act may entail upon him.

’It was so with Kasghine.  It was a very noble action which drove him, an exile, from his country.  Thrown upon the streets of Paris, without friends, without money, he had not the stuff in him to stand up against the forces that were in operation to drag him down.  Which of us can be sure that he would have that stuff?  From begging for work whereby to earn money, Kasghine fell to begging for money itself.  His pride receiving a thousand wounds, instead of being strengthened by them, was killed.  Cleanliness is a luxury, a labour; he began to neglect his person; and, in the case of a gentleman, neglect of the person is generally the first step towards neglect of the spirit.  Little by little he lost his civilised character, and reverted to the primitive beast.  He was feral.