He smiled, lowered his tone, and added: 

“The best.”

Then, turning to the astonished lieutenant, he presented “Comte de Ronfi-Quedissac.”

The old man took both his hands, saying: 

“My dear lieutenant, you have saved my daughter’s life.  I have only one way of thanking you.  You may come in a few months to tell me—­if you like her.”

One year later, on the very same day, Captain Lare and Miss Louise-Hortense-Genevieve de Ronfi-Quedissac were married in the church of St. Thomas Aquinas.

She brought a dowry of six thousand francs, and was said to be the prettiest bride that had been seen that year.

THE HORRIBLE

The shadows of a balmy night were slowly falling.  The women remained in the drawing-room of the villa.  The men, seated, or astride of garden chairs, were smoking outside the door of the house, around a table laden with cups and liqueur glasses.

Their lighted cigars shone like eyes in the darkness, which was gradually becoming more dense.  They had been talking about a frightful accident which had occurred the night before—­two men and three women drowned in the river before the eyes of the guests.

General de G——­remarked: 

“Yes, these things are affecting, but they are not horrible.

“Horrible, that well-known word, means much more than terrible.  A frightful accident like this affects, upsets, terrifies; it does not horrify.  In order that we should experience horror, something more is needed than emotion, something more than the spectacle of a dreadful death; there must be a shuddering sense of mystery, or a sensation of abnormal terror, more than natural.  A man who dies, even under the most tragic circumstances, does not excite horror; a field of battle is not horrible; blood is not horrible; the vilest crimes are rarely horrible.

“Here are two personal examples which have shown me what is the meaning of horror.

“It was during the war of 1870.  We were retreating toward Pont-Audemer, after having passed through Rouen.  The army, consisting of about twenty thousand men, twenty thousand routed men, disbanded, demoralized, exhausted, were going to disband at Havre.

“The earth was covered with snow.  The night was falling.  They had not eaten anything since the day before.  They were fleeing rapidly, the Prussians not being far off.

“All the Norman country, sombre, dotted with the shadows of the trees surrounding the farms, stretched out beneath a black, heavy, threatening sky.

“Nothing else could be heard in the wan twilight but the confused sound, undefined though rapid, of a marching throng, an endless tramping, mingled with the vague clink of tin bowls or swords.  The men, bent, round-shouldered, dirty, in many cases even in rags, dragged themselves along, hurried through the snow, with a long, broken-backed stride.