The Colonel paused, staring at his trimly booted toe.  Madame la Comtesse looked at him thoughtfully.

“You saw him again? she asked.

“Yes,” he answered.  “But possibly the tale becomes too painful.”

The Comtesse passed a hand over her eyes.  “I must hear the rest,” she said.  “You saw her, too, again?”

“Yes,” said the Colonel.

“She was very hard,” said the Comtesse thoughtfully.  “Very hard always.  As a girl I remember——­”

The Colonel was looking at her intently, as though some thought had suddenly brought him enlightenment.  Both he and the Comtesse seemed quite to have forgotten Elsie, listening on her stool in bewilderment and compassion.  She saw them now exchange guarded glances, as though measuring each other’s penetration.

The Comtesse leaned back.  “I beg you to proceed,” she said, with a sigh.  Elsie reached over the arm of the chair and took her hand and held it.

The little Colonel shrugged his shoulders.

“Since Madame la Comtesse wishes it,” he said.  “But some years elapsed before I saw either of them again.  Madame Bertin had said nothing which could encourage me to call at the house in the impasse, and there was no message from him to carry thither.  I heard—­it was said—­that she, too, left the city; Bertin’s exit from the service was arranged, and thus the matter seemed to close.  I preserved certain memories, which I still preserve; I was the richer by them.  Then came active service, expeditions to the interior, some fighting and much occupation.  It chanced that I was fortunate; I gained some credit and promotion; and by degrees the affair of Bertin sank to rest in the background of my life.  It was a closed incident, and I was reconciled never to have it reopened.  But it seems one can never be sure that a thing is ended; possibly Bertin in his hiding-place thought as I did and made the same mistake.  I heard the news when I visited Algiers on my way to a post up-country at the edge of the desert.  New powers had taken charge of our business; there was a new General, an austere, mirthless man, who knew of Bertin’s existence, and resented it.  He had been concerned here and there in more than one enterprise of an unpleasant flavor, and it was the General’s intention to put a period to him.  My friends in barracks told me of it, perfunctorily; and my chief sense was of disgust that Bertin should continue to be noticeable.  And then I went away up-country, in a train that carried me beyond the borders of civilization, and set me down at last one dawn at a point where a military line trickled out into the vast yellow distance, against an undulated horizon of sandhills.  It was in the chill hour of the morning; a few sentries walked their beats, and beyond them there was a plot of silent tents.  The station was no more than planks laid on the ground beside some locked iron sheds, a tank for the engine, and a flagstaff.  It was infinitely forlorn and empty, with an air of staleness and discomfort.  At some distance, a single muffled figure sat apart on a seat; I thought it was some Arab waiting for the day.  Be judge, then, of my amazement when it rose, as I would have passed it, and spoke.”