“Are you sure he will not return?”

“Not he.  They are gone to eat and drink; I go with them.  What is it you fear?”

“My own weakness.”

She was silent.  She could just watch his features by the dim light, and she saw his mouth quiver under the fullness of his beard.  He felt that if he looked again on the face of the man he loved he might be broken into self-pity, and unloose his silence, and shatter all the work of so many years.  He had been strong where men of harder fiber and less ductile temper might have been feeble; but he never thought that he had been so; he only thought that he had acted on impulse, and had remained true to his act through the mere instinct of honor—­an instinct inborn in his blood and his Order—­an instinct natural and unconscious with him as the instinct by which he drove his breath.

“You are a fine soldier,” said Cigarette musingly; “such men are not weak.”

“Why?  We are only strong as tigers are strong—­just the strength of the talon and fang.  I do not know.  I was weak as water once; I may be again, if—­if——­”

He scarcely knew that he was speaking aloud; he had forgotten her!  His whole heart seemed burned as with fire by the memory of that one face so familiar, so well loved, yet from which he must shrink as though some cowardly sin were between them.  The wretchedness on him seemed more than he could bear; to know that this man was so near that the sound of his voice raised could summon him, yet that he must remain as dead to him—­remain as one dead after a craven and treacherous guilt.

He turned suddenly, almost violently, upon Cigarette.

“You have surprised my folly from me; you know my secret so far; but you are too brave to betray me, you are too generous to tell of this?  I can trust you to be silent?”

Her face flushed scarlet with astonished anger; her little, childlike form grew instinct with haughty and fiery dignity.

“Monsieur, that question from one soldier of France to another is insult.  We are not dastards!”

There was a certain grave reproach that mingled with the indignant scorn of the answer, and showed that her own heart was wounded by the doubt, as well as her military pride by the aspersion.  Even amid the conflict of pain at war in him he felt that, and hastened to soothe it.

“Forgive me, my child; I should not have wronged you with the question.  It is needless, I know.  Men can trust you to the death, they say.”

“To the death—­yes.”

The answer was thoughtful, dreamy, almost sad, for Cigarette.  His thoughts were too far from her in their tumult of awakened memories to note the tone as he went rapidly on: 

“You have ingenuity, compassion, tact; you have power here, too, in your way.  For the love of Heaven get me sent out on some duty before dawn!  There is Biribi’s murder to be avenged—­would they give the errand to me?”