yal army in the world cannot subsist without
money, and the Emperor has little or none. The news of his triumphant
march across France will reach Paris long before he does, it will enable
His Most Excellent and Most Corpulent Majesty King Louis to skip over to
England or to Ghent with everything in the treasury on which he can lay
his august hands. Now, de Marmont, do you perceive what the serious
matter is which caused me to meet you here--twenty-five kilometres from
Grenoble, where I ought to be at the present moment."

"Yes! I do perceive very grave trouble there," said de Marmont with
characteristic insouciance, "but one which need not greatly worry the
Emperor. I am rich, thank God! and . . ."

"And may God bless you, my dear de Marmont, for the thought," broke in
Emery earnestly, "but what may be called a large private fortune is as
nothing before the needs of an army. Soon, of course, the Emperor will
be in peaceful possession of his throne and will have all the resources
of France at his command, but before that happy time arrives there will
be much fighting, and many days--weeks perhaps--of anxiety to go
through. During those weeks the army must be paid and fed; and your
private fortune, my dear de Marmont, would--even if the Emperor were to
accept your sacrifice, which is not likely--be but as a drop in the
mighty ocean of the cost of a campaign. What are two or even three
millions, my poor, dear friend? It is forty, fifty millions that the
Emperor wants."

De Marmont this time had nothing to say. He was staring moodily and
silently before him.

"Now, that is what I have come to talk to you about," continued Emery
after a few seconds' pause, during which he had once more thrown a
quick, half-suspicious glance on the impassive, though obviously
interested face of the Englishman, "always supposing that Monsieur here
is on our side."

"Neither on your side nor on the other, Captain," said Bobby Clyffurde
with a slight tone of impatience. "I am a mere tradesman, as I have had
the honour to tell you: a spectator at this game of political conflicts.
M. de Marmont knows this well, else he had not asked me to accompany him
to-day nor offered me a mount to enable me to do so. But if you prefer
it," he added lightly, "I can go for a stroll while you discuss these
graver matters."

He would have risen from the table only that Emery immediately detained
him.

"No offence, Sir," said the surgeon-captain bluntly.