Beholding his adversary stretched out perfectly still, his face to the sky, Lieut.  D’Hubert thought he had killed him outright.  The impression of having slashed hard enough to cut his man clean in two abode with him for a while in an exaggerated memory of the right good-will he had put into the blow.  He dropped on his knees hastily by the side of the prostrate body.  Discovering that not even the arm was severed, a slight sense of disappointment mingled with the feeling of relief.  The fellow deserved the worst.  But truly he did not want the death of that sinner.  The affair was ugly enough as it stood, and Lieut.  D’Hubert addressed himself at once to the task of stopping the bleeding.  In this task it was his fate to be ridiculously impeded by the pretty maid.  Rending the air with screams of horror, she attacked him from behind and, twining her fingers in his hair, tugged back 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 fling her off.  He did this stoically, without a word, kneeling down again at once to go on with his work.  But the third time, his work being done, he seized her and held her arms pinned to her body.  Her cap was half off, her face was red, her eyes blazed 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 she had managed to scratch his face abundantly.  Ridicule would be added to the scandal of the story.  He imagined the adorned tale making its way through the garrison of the town, through the whole army on the frontier, 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 to the very ears 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 down the arms of the girl in a strong grip, Lieut.  D’Hubert glanced over his shoulder.  Lieut.  Feraud had opened his eyes.  He did not move.  Like a man just waking from a deep sleep he stared without any expression at the evening sky.

Lieut.  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 struggled, not with maidenly coyness, but like a pretty, dumb fury, 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.  She was more exhausted than appeased, he feared.  Nevertheless, he attempted to get out of this wicked dream by way of negotiation.