l attacks made upon her.

"Look! Here she comes! She is passing us again. One would think she was
deliberately trying to do it!" exclaimed Madame Desvanneaux, just before
their carriage reached the Arc de Triomphe.

Zibeline's sleigh, which had glided swiftly, and without hindrance,
along the unfrequented track used chiefly by equestrians, had indeed
overtaken the Duchess's carriage. Turning abruptly to the left, it
entered the open gateway belonging to one of the corner houses of the
Rond-Point de l'Etoile.

"Decidedly, the young lady is very fond of posing," said the General,
with a shrug, and, settling himself in his corner, he turned his
thoughts elsewhere.

Having deposited her two friends at their own door, the Duchess ordered
the coachman to take her home, and at the foot of the steps she said to
her brother:

"Will you dine with us to-night?"

"No, not to-night," he replied, "but we shall meet at the theatre."

And, crossing the court, he entered his little bachelor apartment, which
he had occupied from time to time since the days when he was only a
sub-lieutenant.

CHAPTER X. GENERAL DE PREROLLES

The sub-lieutenant had kept his word, and the progress of his career
deserves detailed mention.

He was a lieutenant at the taking of Puebla, where he was first to
mount in the assault of the Convent of Guadalupita. Captain of the Third
Zouaves after the siege of Oajaca, he had exercised, during the rest
of the expedition, command over a mounted company, whose duty was to
maintain communications between the various columns, continuing, at the
same time, their operations in the Michoacan.

This confidential mission, requiring as much power to take the
initiative as it demanded a cool head, gave the Marquis opportunity to
execute, with rapidity and decision, several master-strokes, which,
in the following circumstances, won for him the cross of the Legion of
Honor.

The most audacious of the guerrillas who had devastated this fertile
country was a chief called Regulas. He pillaged the farms, stopped
railway trains, boldly demanding ransom from captives from the municipal
governments of large towns. He was continually, active, and always
inaccessible.

Warned by his scouts that the followers of this villain menaced the town
of Pazcuaro, Captain de Prerolles prepared himself eagerly to meet them.
He overtook them in a night march, and fell upon them unexpectedly, just
as they were holding up the di