and fell into a long train
of thought.

"Do you know what I think?" he said at length. "I think that De Casimir
was not ill at all--any more than I am; I, Barlasch. Not so ill,
perhaps, as I am, for I have an indigestion. It is always there at the
summit of the stomach. It is horse without salt."

He paused and rubbed his chest tenderly.

"Never eat horse without salt," he put in parenthetically.

"I hope never to eat it at all," answered Desiree. "What about Colonel
de Casimir?"

He waved her aside as a babbler who broke in upon his thoughts. These
seemed to be lodged in his mouth, for, when reflecting, he chewed and
mumbled with his lips.

"Listen," he said at length. "This is De Casimir. He goes to bed and
lets his beard grow--half an inch of beard will keep any man in the
hospital. You nod your head. Yes; I thought so. He knows that the
viceroy, with the last of the army, is at Thorn. He keeps quiet. He
waits in his roadside inn until the last of the army has gone. He
waits until the Russians come, and to them he hands over the Emperor's
possessions--all the papers, the maps, the despatches. For that he will
be rewarded by the Emperor Alexander, who has already promised pardon to
all Poles who have taken arms against Russia and now submit. De Casimir
will be allowed to retain his own baggage. He has no loot taken at
Moscow--oh no! Only his own baggage. Ah--that man! See, I spit him out."

And it is painful to record that he here resorted to graphic
illustration.

"Ah!" he went on triumphantly, "I know. I can see right into the mind
of such a man. I will tell you why. It is because I am that sort of man
myself."

"You do not seem to have been so successful--since you are poor," said
Desiree, with a laugh.

He frowned at her apparently in speechless anger, seeking an answer. But
for the moment he could think of none, so he turned to the knives again,
which he was cleaning on a board on the kitchen-table. At length he
paused and glanced at Desiree.

"And your husband," he said slowly. "Remember that he is a partner with
this De Casimir. They hunt together. I know it; for I was in Moscow. Ah!
that makes you stand stiffly, and push your chin out."

He went on cleaning the knives, and, without looking at her, seemed to
be speaking his own thoughts aloud.

"Yes! He is a traitor. And he is worse than the other; for he is no
Pole, but a Frenchman. And if he returns to France, the Emperor will
say: 'Where a