ou in return. I am as
poor as you."

"Then we can be friends," he said. He was eyeing surreptitiously a mug
of beer which Desiree had set before him on the table. Some instinct, or
the teaching of the last two months, made it repugnant to him to eat or
drink beneath his neighbour's eye. He was a sorry-looking figure, not
far removed from the animals, and in his downward journey he had picked
up, perhaps, the instinct which none can explain, telling an animal to
take its food in secret.

Desiree went to the window, turning her back to him, and looked out into
the yard. She heard him drink, and set the mug down again with a gulp.

"You were in Moscow?" she said at length, half turning towards him so
that he could see her profile and her short upper lip, which was parted
as if to ask a question which she did not put into words. He looked her
slowly up and down beneath his heavy eyebrows, his little cunning eyes
alight with suspicion. He watched her parted lips, which were tilted at
the corners, showing humour and a nature quick to laugh or suffer. Then
he jerked his head upwards as if he saw the unasked question quivering
there, and bore her some malice for her silence.

"Yes! I was in Moscow," he said, watching the colour fade from her face.
"And I saw him--your husband--there. I was on guard outside his door the
night we entered the city. It was I who carried to the post the letter
he wrote you. He was very anxious that it should reach you. You received
it--that love-letter?"

"Yes," answered Desiree gravely, in no wise responding to a sudden
forced gaiety in Papa Barlasch, which was only an evidence of the
shyness with which rough men all the world over approach the subject of
love. The gaiety lapsed into a sudden silence. He waited for her to ask
a question, but in vain.

"I never saw him again," went on Barlasch, "for the 'general' sounded,
and I went out into the streets to find the city on fire. In a great
army, as in a large country, one may easily lose one's own brother. But
he will return--have no fear. He has good fortune--the fine gentleman."

He stopped and scratched his head, looked at her sideways with a grimace
of bewilderment.

"It is good news I bring you," he muttered. "He was alive and well when
we began the retreat. He was on the staff, and the staff had horses and
carriages. They had bread to eat, I am told."

"And you--what had you?" asked Desiree, over her shoulder.

"No matter," he answ