"Because," I cried, "your story is a tissue of lies! Because it was
you, and you only, who stole this paper! Because--Down on your knees!
down on your knees!" I thundered, "and confess! Confess, or I will
have you whipped at the cart's tail, like the false witness you are!"

She threw herself down shrieking, and caught my wife by the skirts, and
in a breath had said all I wanted; and more than enough to show me that
I had suspected Vilain without cause, and both played the simpleton
myself and harried my household to distraction.

So far good. I could arrange matters with Vilain, and probably avoid
publicity. But what was now to be done with her?

In the case of a man I should have thought no punishment too severe,
and the utmost rigour of the law too tender for such perfidy; but as
she was a woman, and young, and under my wife's protection, I
hesitated. Finally, the Duchess interceding, I leaned to the side of
that mercy which the girl had not shown to her lover; and thought her
sufficiently punished, at the moment by the presence of Mademoiselle de
Figeac whom I called into the room to witness her humiliation, and in
the future by dismissal from my household. As this imported banishment
to her father's country-house, where her mother, a shrewd old
Bearnaise, saved pence and counted lentils into the soup, and saw
company once a quarter, I had perhaps reason to be content with her
chastisement.

For the rest I sent for M. de Vilain, and by finding him employment in
the finances, and interceding for him with the old Vicomte de Figeac,
confirmed him in the attachment he had begun to feel for me before this
unlucky event; nor do I doubt that I should have been able in time to
advance him to a post worthy of the talents I discerned in him. But,
alas, the deplorable crime, which so soon deprived me at one blow of my
master and of power, put an end to this, among other and greater
schemes.

VII.

THE GOVERNOR OF GUERET.

Without attaching to dreams greater importance than a prudent man will
always be willing to assign to the unknown and unintelligible, I have
been in the habit of reflecting on them; and have observed with some
curiosity that in these later years of my life, during which France has
enjoyed peace and comparative prosperity, my dreams have most often
reproduced the stormy rides and bivouacs of my youth, with all the
rough and bloody accompaniments which our day knows only by repute.
Con