ill, I am sure, make allowances, lieutenant, when I
tell you that your prisoner of last night was a very dear friend of my
daughter's. Such family considerations do not prevent me from doing my
duty to the Emperor, but they make that duty more painful than it would
otherwise be.'

'You have my sympathy, mademoiselle,' said the young hussar.

It was to him that my cousin had now turned.

'Do I understand that you took him prisoner?' she asked.

'It was unfortunately my duty.'

'From you I will get the truth. Whither did you take him?'

'To the Emperor's camp.'

'And why?'

'Ah, mademoiselle, it is not for me to go into politics. My duties are
but to wield a sword, and sit a horse, and obey my orders. Both these
gentlemen will be my witnesses that I received my instructions from
Colonel Lasalle.'

'But on what charge was he arrested?'

'Tut, tut, child, we have had enough of this!' said my uncle harshly.
'If you insist upon knowing I will tell you once and for all, that
Monsieur Lucien Lesage has been seized for being concerned in a plot
against the life of the Emperor, and that it was my privilege to
denounce the would-be assassin.'

'To denounce him!' cried the girl. 'I know that it was you who set him
on, who encouraged him, who held him to it whenever he tried to draw
back. Oh, you villain! you villain! What have I over done, what sin of
my ancestors am I expiating, that I should be compelled to call such a
man Father?'

My uncle shrugged his shoulders as if to say that it was useless to
argue with a woman's tantrums. The hussar and I made as if we would
stroll away, for it was embarrassing to stand listening to such words,
but in her fury she called to us to stop and be witnesses against him.
Never have I seen such a recklessness of passion as blazed in her dry
wide-opened eyes.

'You have deceived others, but you have never deceived me,' she cried.
'I know you as your own conscience knows you. You may murder me, as you
murdered my mother before me, but you can never frighten me into being
your accomplice. You proclaimed yourself a Republican that you might
creep into a house and estate which do not belong to you. And now you
try to make a friend of Buonaparte by betraying your old associates, who
still trust in you. And you have sent Lucien to his death! But I know
your plans, and my Cousin Louis knows them also, and I can assure you
that there is just as much chance of his agreeing to