uld conceive her to be a light woman? She, the
never-to-be-comforted widow of the incomparably gallant hero of
anthracite stoves and le Grand Couronne. She had been too
unsuspicious, too trustful; their pleasant acquaintance must end upon
the instant; the too-gross insult which he had put upon her could
never be pardoned. Rust was borne away and overwhelmed in the flow of
her sad reproaches. Abjectly he grovelled: He regard the ineffable
Madame Guilbert as a light woman! Perish the thought! He, to whom she
had been an angel of kindness and discretion! He cast a slur upon the
shining brightness of her reputation! Rust had never in his life been
so eloquent. Madame listened with satisfaction. She might in time,
after long years, forgive him, but not yet. The insult, however
unintended, was too fresh and her heart was desolated! She scorched
and scarified Rust during two whole days, for their meetings continued
unbroken, and at last, as an undeserved concession and as evidence of
her soft forgiving heart, she consented to go to Brighton on the
Friday. "We must regard closely _les convenances_. You men, so rash
and so stupid, you do not understand how infinitely precious to us
poor women is the spotless bloom of our reputation." Rust protested
that the bloom upon the unplucked peach was not, in his eyes, more
stainless than the reputation of Madame. How she must have grinned! He
made plans, rude, coarse plans, for the shielding of the so precious
reputation of dear Madame Guilbert, but she gently put them aside. "In
my hands," she declared grandly, "le Capitaine Guilbert has left his
honour, and I will guard it with my life. Alas, what is my life when
my heart is buried in that lonely grave upon le Grand Couronne in
which I pray rests his much-blown-up body. I myself will devise the
means by which I can grant you a mark of my condescending forgiveness
and preserve _sans reproche_ the honour of a Guilbert."

I confess that I have drawn upon my imagination for most of this
touching scene, but, knowing Madame as I do, I am sure that I have
given the hang of it.

CHAPTER XI

AT BRIGHTON

Madame Gilbert and Captain Rust travelled to Brighton on the Friday
evening in the Pullman train. They occupied different carriages. Their
hotel, one of those facing the sea which washed the far-off shores of
their beloved, bleeding France, had been selected by Madame--"I desire
a hotel, my friend, not a _caravanserai_!" Madame arr