back and, twining her fingers in his hair, tugged at his head.  Why she should choose to hinder him at this precise moment he could not in the least understand.  He did not try.  It was all like a very wicked and harassing dream.  Twice, to save himself from being pulled over, he had to rise and throw her off.  He did this stoically, without a word, kneeling down again at once to go on with his work.  But when the work was done he seized both her arms and held them down.  Her cap was half off, her face was red, her eyes glared with crazy boldness.  He looked mildly into them while she called him a wretch, a traitor and a murderer many times in succession.  This did not annoy him so much as the conviction that in her scurries she had managed to scratch his face abundantly.  Ridicule would be added to the scandal of the story.  He imagined it making its way through the garrison, through the whole army, with every possible distortion of motive and sentiment and circumstance, spreading a doubt upon the sanity of his conduct and the distinction of his taste even into the very bosom of his honourable family.  It was all very well for that fellow Feraud, who had no connections, no family to speak of, and no quality but courage which, anyhow, was a matter of course, and possessed by every single trooper in the whole mass of French cavalry.  Still holding the wrists of the girl in a strong grip, Lieutenant D’Hubert looked over his shoulder.  Lieutenant Feraud had opened his eyes.  He did not move.  Like a man just waking from a deep sleep he stared with a drowsy expression at the evening sky.

Lieutenant D’Hubert’s urgent shouts to the old gardener produced no effect—­not so much as to make him shut his toothless mouth.  Then he remembered that the man was stone deaf.  All that time the girl, attempting to free her wrists, struggled, not with maidenly coyness but like a sort of pretty dumb fury, not even refraining from kicking his shins now and then.  He continued to hold her as if in a vice, his instinct telling him that were he to let her go she would fly at his eyes.  But he was greatly humiliated by his position.  At last she gave up, more exhausted than appeased, he feared.  Nevertheless he attempted to get out of this wicked dream by way of negotiation.

“Listen to me,” he said as calmly as he could.  “Will you promise to run for a surgeon if I let you go?”

He was profoundly afflicted when, panting, sobbing, and choking, she made it clear that she would do nothing of the kind.  On the contrary, her incoherent intentions were to remain in the garden and fight with her nails and her teeth for the protection of the prostrate man.  This was horrible.

“My dear child,” he cried in despair, “is it possible that you think me capable of murdering a wounded adversary?  Is it....  Be quiet, you little wildcat, you,” he added.

She struggled.  A thick sleepy voice said behind him: 

“What are you up to with that girl?”