s to
the meaning of all this?'

'I am quite content, sire, if it is your pleasure not to tell me,' I
answered.

'Ta, ta, ta,' said he impatiently. 'These are only words. The moment
that you were outside that door you would begin making inquiries about
what it means. In two days your brother officers would know about it, in
three days it would be all over Fontainebleau, and it would be in Paris
on the fourth. Now, if I tell you enough to appease your curiosity,
there is some reasonable hope that you may be able to keep the matter to
yourself.'

He did not understand me, this Emperor, and yet I could only bow and be
silent.

'A few words will make it clear to you,' said he, speaking very swiftly
and pacing up and down the room. 'They were Corsicans, these two men. I
had known them in my youth. We had belonged to the same
society--Brothers of Ajaccio, as we called ourselves. It was founded in
the old Paoli days, you understand, and we had some strict rules of our
own which were not infringed with impunity.'

A very grim look came over his face as he spoke, and it seemed to me
that all that was French had gone out of him, and that it was the pure
Corsican, the man of strong passions and of strange revenges, who stood
before me. His memory had gone back to those early days of his, and for
five minutes, wrapped in thought, he paced up and down the room with his
quick little tiger steps. Then with an impatient wave of his hands he
came back to his palace and to me.

'The rules of such a society,' he continued, 'are all very well for a
private citizen. In the old days there was no more loyal brother than I.
But circumstances change, and it would be neither for my welfare nor
for that of France that I should now submit myself to them. They wanted
to hold me to it, and so brought their fate upon their own heads. These
were the two chiefs of the order, and they had come from Corsica to
summon me to meet them at the spot which they named. I knew what such a
summons meant. No man had ever returned from obeying one. On the other
hand, if I did not go, I was sure that disaster would follow. I am a
brother myself, you remember, and I know their ways.'

Again there came that hardening of his mouth and cold glitter of his
eyes.

'You perceive my dilemma, Monsieur Gerard,' said he. 'How would you have
acted yourself, under such circumstances?'

'Given the word to the l0th Hussars, sire,' I cried. 'Patrols could have
swept the