n shared was visible in his face.

"There is no need to ask if you are M. Benassis," said the soldier. "You
will pardon me, sir, if, as a stranger impatient to see you, I have come
to seek you on your field of battle, instead of awaiting you at your
house. Pray do not disturb yourself; go on with what you are doing. When
it is over, I will tell you the purpose of my visit."

Genestas half seated himself upon the edge of the table, and remained
silent. The firelight shone more brightly in the room than the faint
rays of the sun, for the mountain crests intercepted them, so that they
seldom reached this corner of the valley. A few branches of resinous
pinewood made a bright blaze, and it was by the light of this fire
that the soldier saw the face of the man towards whom he was drawn by
a secret motive, by a wish to seek him out, to study and to know him
thoroughly well. M. Benassis, the local doctor, heard Genestas with
indifference, and with folded arms he returned his bow, and went back to
his patient, quite unaware that he was being subjected to a scrutiny as
earnest as that which the soldier turned upon him.

Benassis was a man of ordinary height, broad-shouldered and
deep-chested. A capacious green overcoat, buttoned up to the chin,
prevented the officer from observing any characteristic details of his
personal appearance; but his dark and motionless figure served as a
strong relief to his face, which caught the bright light of the blazing
fire. The face was not unlike that of a satyr; there was the same
slightly protruding forehead, full, in this case, of prominences,
all more or less denoting character; the same turned-up nose, with a
sprightly cleavage at the tip; the same high cheek-bones. The lines of
the mouth were crooked; the lips, thick and red. The chin turned sharply
upwards. There was an alert, animated look in the brown eyes, to which
their pearly whites gave great brightness, and which expressed passions
now subdued. His iron-gray hair, the deep wrinkles in his face,
the bushy eyebrows that had grown white already, the veins on his
protuberant nose, the tanned face covered with red blotches, everything
about him, in short, indicated a man of fifty and the hard work of his
profession. The officer could come to no conclusion as to the capacity
of the head, which was covered by a close cap; but hidden though it was,
it seemed to him to be one of the square-shaped kind that gave rise
to the expression "sq