n away.
And now it would seem that she had run away for good. And there lay the
Great Place under the windows, bare and barren.

In his shamefaced and constrained way, Mr. The Englishman asked no
question of any one, but watched from his front windows and watched from
his back windows, and lingered about the Place, and peeped in at the
Barber's shop, and did all this and much more with a whistling and tune-
humming pretence of not missing anything, until one afternoon when
Monsieur Mutuel's patch of sunlight was in shadow, and when, according to
all rule and precedent, he had no right whatever to bring his red ribbon
out of doors, behold here he was, advancing with his cap already in his
hand twelve paces off!

Mr. The Englishman had got as far into his usual objurgation as, "What bu-
si--" when he checked himself.

"Ah, it is sad, it is sad! Helas, it is unhappy, it is sad!" Thus old
Monsieur Mutuel, shaking his gray head.

"What busin--at least, I would say, what do you mean, Monsieur Mutuel?"

"Our Corporal. Helas, our dear Corporal!"

"What has happened to him?"

"You have not heard?"

"No."

"At the fire. But he was so brave, so ready. Ah, too brave, too ready!"

"May the Devil carry you away!" the Englishman broke in impatiently; "I
beg your pardon,--I mean me,--I am not accustomed to speak French,--go
on, will you?"

"And a falling beam--"

"Good God!" exclaimed the Englishman. "It was a private soldier who was
killed?"

"No. A Corporal, the same Corporal, our dear Corporal. Beloved by all
his comrades. The funeral ceremony was touching,--penetrating. Monsieur
The Englishman, your eyes fill with tears."

"What bu-si--"

"Monsieur The Englishman, I honour those emotions. I salute you with
profound respect. I will not obtrude myself upon your noble heart."

Monsieur Mutuel,--a gentleman in every thread of his cloudy linen, under
whose wrinkled hand every grain in the quarter of an ounce of poor snuff
in his poor little tin box became a gentleman's property,--Monsieur
Mutuel passed on, with his cap in his hand.

"I little thought," said the Englishman, after walking for several
minutes, and more than once blowing his nose, "when I was looking round
that cemetery--I'll go there!"

Straight he went there, and when he came within the gate he paused,
considering whether he should ask at the lodge for some direction to the
grave. But he was less than ever in a mood for asking questio