been so
fortunate as to find a husband in that excellent young fellow Weiss, who
had long held the position of accountant in the great sugar refinery at
Chene-Populeux, and was now foreman for M. Delaherche, one of the chief
cloth manufacturers of Sedan. And Maurice, always cheered and encouraged
when he saw a prospect of amendment in himself, and equally disheartened
when his good resolves failed him and he relapsed, generous and
enthusiastic but without steadiness of purpose, a weathercock that
shifted with every varying breath of impulse, now believed that
experience had done its work and taught him the error of his ways.
He was a small, light-complexioned man, with a high, well-developed
forehead, small nose, and retreating chin, and a pair of attractive gray
eyes in a face that indicated intelligence; there were times when his
mind seemed to lack balance.

Weiss, on the eve of the commencement of hostilities, had found that
there were family matters that made it necessary for him to visit
Mulhausen, and had made a hurried trip to that city. That he had been
able to employ the good offices of Colonel de Vineuil to afford him an
opportunity of shaking hands with his brother-in-law was owing to the
circumstance that that officer was own uncle to young Mme. Delaherche,
a pretty young widow whom the cloth manufacturer had married the
year previous, and whom Maurice and Henriette, thanks to their being
neighbors, had known as a girl. In addition to the colonel, moreover,
Maurice had discovered that the captain of his company, Beaudoin, was
an acquaintance of Gilberte, Delaherche's young wife; report even had it
that she and the captain had been on terms of intimacy in the days when
she was Mme. Maginot, living at Meziere, wife of M. Maginot, the timber
inspector.

"Give Henriette a good kiss for me, Weiss," said the young man, who
loved his sister passionately. "Tell her that she shall have no reason
to complain of me, that I wish her to be proud of her brother."

Tears rose to his eyes at the remembrance of his misdeeds. The
brother-in-law, who was also deeply affected, ended the painful scene by
turning to Honore Fouchard, the artilleryman.

"The first time I am anywhere in the neighborhood," he said, "I will run
up to Remilly and tell Uncle Fouchard that I saw you and that you are
well."

Uncle Fouchard, a peasant, who owned a bit of land and plied the trade
of itinerant butcher, serving his customers from a car