He was almost an old man, tall and thin, with white moustache; and, three years ago, he had married the daughter of a comrade, left an orphan on the death of her father, Colonel Sortis.

The captain and the lieutenant, on whom their commanding officer was leaning, attempted to lead him away.  He resisted, his eyes full of tears, which he heroically held back, and murmuring, “No, no, a little while longer!” he persisted in remaining there, his legs bending under him, at the side of that pit, which seemed to him bottomless, an abyss into which had fallen his heart and his life, all that he held dear on earth.

Suddenly, General Ormont came up, seized the colonel by the arm, and dragging him from the spot almost by force said:  “Come, come, my old comrade! you must not remain here.”

The colonel thereupon obeyed, and went back to his quarters.  As he opened the door of his study, he saw a letter on the table.  When he took it in his hands, he was near falling with surprise and emotion; he recognized his wife’s handwriting.  And the letter bore the post-mark and the date of the same day.  He tore open the envelope and read: 

* * * * *

“Father,

“Permit me to call you still father, as in days gone by.  When you receive this letter, I shall be dead and under the clay.  Therefore, perhaps, you may forgive me.

“I do not want to excite your pity or to extenuate my sin.  I only want to tell the entire and complete truth, with all the sincerity of a woman who, in an hour’s time, is going to kill herself.

“When you married me through generosity, I gave myself to you through gratitude, and I loved you with all my girlish heart.  I loved you as I loved my own father—­almost as much; and one day, while I sat on your knee, and you were kissing me, I called you ‘Father’ in spite of myself.  It was a cry of the heart, instinctive, spontaneous.  Indeed, you were to me a father, nothing but a father.  You laughed, and you said to me, ‘Address me always in that way, my child; it gives me pleasure.’

“We came to the city; and—­forgive me, father—­I fell in love.  Ah!  I resisted long, well, nearly two years—­and then I yielded, I sinned, I became a fallen woman.

“And as to him?  You will never guess who he is.  I am easy enough about that matter, since there were a dozen officers always around me and with me, whom you called my twelve constellations.

“Father, do not seek to know him, and do not hate him.  He only did what any man, no matter whom, would have done in his place, and then I am sure that he loved me, too, with all his heart.

“But listen!  One day we had an appointment in the isle of Becasses—­you know the little isle, close to the mill.  I had to get there by swimming, and he had to wait for me in a thicket, and then to remain there till nightfall, so that nobody should see him going away.  I had just met him when the branches opened, and we saw Philippe, your orderly, who had surprised us.  I felt that we were lost, and I uttered a great cry.  Thereupon he said to me—­he, my lover—­’Go, swim back quietly, my darling, and leave me here with this man.’