He uttered the last topic of consolation in a broad, hearty, hilarious tone, like a trombone impregnated with cheerful views of fate.

“Heaven forbid!” cried Rose:  “and I will, for even I shall pray for you now.  What you will leave her at home? forgive me for not seeing all your worth:  of course I knew you were an angel, but I had no idea you were a duck.  You are just the man for my sister.  She likes to obey:  you are all for commanding.  So you see.  Then she never thinks of herself; any other man but you would impose on her good-nature; but you are too generous to do that.  So you see.  Then she esteems you so highly.  And one whom I esteem (between you and me) has chosen you for her.”

“Then say yes, and have done with it,” suggested the straightforward soldier.

“Why should I say ‘no?’ you will make one another happy some day:  you are both so good.  Any other man but you would tear her from me; but you are too just, too kind.  Heaven will reward you.  No!  I will.  I will give you Josephine:  ah, my dear brother-in-law, it is the most precious thing I have to give in the world.”

“Thank you, then.  So that is settled.  Hum! no, it is not quite; I forgot; I have something for you to read; an anonymous letter.  I got it this morning; it says your sister has a lover.”

The letter ran to this tune:  a friend who had observed the commandant’s frequent visits at Beaurepaire wrote to warn him against traps.  Both the young ladies of Beaurepaire were doubtless at the new proprietor’s service to pick and choose from.  But for all that each of them had a lover, and though these lovers had their orders to keep out of the way till monsieur should be hooked, he might be sure that if he married either, the man of her heart would come on the scene soon after, perhaps be present at the wedding.

In short, it was one of those poisoned arrows a coarse vindictive coward can shoot.

It was the first anonymous letter Rose had ever seen.  It almost drove her mad on the spot.  Raynal was sorry he had let her see it.

She turned red and white by turns, and gasped for breath.

“Why am I not a man?—­why don’t I wear a sword?  I would pass it through this caitiff’s heart.  The cowardly slave!—­the fiend! for who but a fiend could slander an angel like my Josephine?  Hooked?  Oh! she will never marry you if she sees this.”

“Then don’t let her see it:  and why take it to heart like that?  I don’t trust to the word of a man who owns that his story is a thing he dares not sign his name to; at all events, I shall not put his word against yours.  But it is best to understand one another in time.  I am a plain man, but not a soft one.  I should not be an easygoing husband like some I see about:  I’d have no wasps round my honey; if my wife took a lover I would not lecture the woman—­what is the use?—­I’d kill the man then and there, in-doors or out, as I would kill a snake.  If she took another, I’d send him after the first, and so on till one killed me.”