ps they
loved! Love in a prison is quick work. Did they commit some imprudence?
Was the sentiment they entertained something warmer than the superficial
gallantry which is almost a duty of men towards women?

"Beauvoir never fully explained this rather obscure episode of the
story; it is at least certain that the commandant thought himself
justified in treating his prisoner with excessive severity. Beauvoir was
placed in the dungeon, fed on black bread and cold water, and fettered
in accordance with the time-honored traditions of the treatment lavished
on captives. His cell, under the fortress-yard, was vaulted with hard
stone, the walls were of desperate thickness; the tower overlooked the
precipice.

"When the luckless man had convinced himself of the impossibility of
escape, he fell into those day-dreams which are at once the comfort and
the crowning despair of prisoners. He gave himself up to the trifles
which in such cases seem so important; he counted the hours and the
days; he studied the melancholy trade of being prisoner; he became
absorbed in himself, and learned the value of air and sunshine; then,
at the end of a fortnight, he was attacked by that terrible malady, that
fever for liberty, which drives prisoners to those heroic efforts of
which the prodigious achievements seem to us impossible, though true,
and which my friend the doctor" (and he turned to Bianchon) "would
perhaps ascribe to some unknown forces too recondite for his
physiological analysis to detect, some mysteries of the human will of
which the obscurity baffles science."

Bianchon shook his head in negation.

"Beauvoir was eating his heart out, for death alone could set him
free. One morning the turnkey, whose duty it was to bring him his food,
instead of leaving him when he had given him his meagre pittance, stood
with his arms folded, looking at him with strange meaning. Conversation
between them was brief, and the warder never began it. The Chevalier
was therefore greatly surprised when the man said to him: 'Of course,
monsieur, you know your own business when you insist on being always
called Monsieur Lebrun, or citizen Lebrun. It is no concern of mine;
ascertaining your name is no part of my duty. It is all the same to
me whether you call yourself Peter or Paul. If every man minds his own
business, the cows will not stray. At the same time, _I_ know,' said he,
with a wink, 'that you are Monsieur Charles-Felix-Theodore, Chevalier
de