“Come along, my dear child,” she cried from the doorway.

The general, now himself again in the fullest sense, showed the readiness of a resourceful cavalry officer and the peremptoriness of a leader of men.  “You don’t expect her to walk to the carriage,” he said, indignantly.  “She isn’t fit.  I shall carry her downstairs.”

This he did slowly, followed by his awed and respectful sister; but he rushed back like a whirlwind to wash off all the signs of the night of anguish and the morning of war, and to put on the festive garments of a conqueror before hurrying over to the other house.  Had it not been for that, General D ’Hubert felt capable of mounting a horse and pursuing his late adversary in order simply to embrace him from excess of happiness.  “I owe it all to this stupid brute,” he thought.  “He has made plain in a morning what might have taken me years to find out—­for I am a timid fool.  No self-confidence whatever.  Perfect coward.  And the Chevalier!  Delightful old man!” General D’Hubert longed to embrace him also.

The Chevalier was in bed.  For several days he was very unwell.  The men of the Empire and the post-revolution young ladies were too much for him.  He got up the day before the wedding, and, being curious by nature, took his niece aside for a quiet talk.  He advised her to find out from her husband the true story of the affair of honour, whose claim, so imperative and so persistent, had led her to within an ace of tragedy.  “It is right that his wife should be told.  And next month or so will be your time to learn from him anything you want to know, my dear child.”

Later on, when the married couple came on a visit to the mother of the bride, Madame la Generale D’Hubert communicated to her beloved old uncle the true story she had obtained without any difficulty from her husband.

The Chevalier listened with deep attention to the end, took a pinch of snuff, flicked the grains of tobacco from the frilled front of his shirt, and asked, calmly, “And that’s all it was?”

“Yes, uncle,” replied Madame la Generale, opening her pretty eyes very wide.  “Isn’t it funny?  C’est insense—­to think what men are capable of!”

“H’m!” commented the old emigre.  “It depends what sort of men.  That Bonaparte’s soldiers were savages.  It is insense.  As a wife, my dear, you must believe implicitly what your husband says.”

But to Leonie’s husband the Chevalier confided his true opinion.  “If that’s the tale the fellow made up for his wife, and during the honeymoon, too, you may depend on it that no one will ever know now the secret of this affair.”

Considerably later still, General D’Hubert judged the time come, and the opportunity propitious to write a letter to General Feraud.  This letter began by disclaiming all animosity.  “I’ve never,” wrote the General Baron D’Hubert, “wished for your death during all the time of our deplorable quarrel.  Allow me,” he continued, “to give you back in all form your forfeited life.  It is proper that we two, who have been partners in so much military glory, should be friendly to each other publicly.”