“I understand your wish to be done with me as quickly as possible.  Don’t let us waste time in empty ceremonies.  Do you see that wood there at the foot of that slope?  Yes, the wood of pines.  Let us meet there to-morrow at sunrise.  I will bring with me my sword or my pistols, or both if you like.”

The seconds of General Feraud looked at each other.

“Pistols, General,” said the cuirassier.

“So be it.  Au revoir—­to-morrow morning.  Till then let me advise you to keep close if you don’t want the gendarmerie making inquiries about you before it gets dark.  Strangers are rare in this part of the country.”

They saluted in silence.  General D’Hubert, turning his back on their retreating forms, stood still in the middle of the road for a long time, biting his lower lip and looking on the ground.  Then he began to walk straight before him, thus retracing his steps till he found himself before the park gate of his intended’s house.  Dusk had fallen.  Motionless he stared through the bars at the front of the house, gleaming clear beyond the thickets and trees.  Footsteps scrunched on the gravel, and presently a tall stooping shape emerged from the lateral alley following the inner side of the park wall.

Le Chevalier de Valmassigue, uncle of the adorable Adele, ex-brigadier in the army of the Princes, bookbinder in Altona, afterwards shoemaker (with a great reputation for elegance in the fit of ladies’ shoes) in another small German town, wore silk stockings on his lean shanks, low shoes with silver buckles, a brocaded waistcoat.  A long-skirted coat, a la francaise, covered loosely his thin, bowed back.  A small three-cornered hat rested on a lot of powdered hair, tied in a queue.

“Monsieur le Chevalier,” called General D’Hubert, softly.

“What?  You here again, mon ami?  Have you forgotten something?”

“By heavens! that’s just it.  I have forgotten something.  I am come to tell you of it.  No—­outside.  Behind this wall.  It’s too ghastly a thing to be let in at all where she lives.”

The Chevalier came out at once with that benevolent resignation some old people display towards the fugue of youth.  Older by a quarter of a century than General D’Hubert, he looked upon him in the secret of his heart as a rather troublesome youngster in love.  He had heard his enigmatical words very well, but attached no undue importance to what a mere man of forty so hard hit was likely to do or say.  The turn of mind of the generation of Frenchmen grown up during the years of his exile was almost unintelligible to him.  Their sentiments appeared to him unduly violent, lacking fineness and measure, their language needlessly exaggerated.  He joined calmly the General on the road, and they made a few steps in silence, the General trying to master his agitation, and get proper control of his voice.

“It is perfectly true; I forgot something.  I forgot till half an hour ago that I had an urgent affair of honour on my hands.  It’s incredible, but it is so!”