nstrated.

"Could you think of it, Colonel Feraud, at this time, when every life
should be consecrated to the glory and safety of France?"

But the strain of unhappiness caused by military reverses had spoiled
Colonel Feraud's character. Like many other men, he was rendered wicked
by misfortune.

"I cannot consider General D'Hubert's existence of any account either
for the glory or safety of France," he snapped viciously. "You don't
pretend, perhaps, to know him better than I do--I who have met him half
a dozen times on the ground--do you?"

His interlocutor, a young man, was silenced. Colonel Feraud walked up
and down the room.

"This is not the time to mince matters," he said. "I can't believe that
that man ever loved the Emperor. He picked up his general's stars under
the boots of Marshal Berthier. Very well. I'll get mine in another
fashion, and then we shall settle this business which has been dragging
on too long."

General D'Hubert, informed indirectly of Colonel Feraud's attitude, made
a gesture as if to put aside an importunate person. His thoughts were
solicited by graver cares. He had had no time to go and see his family.
His sister, whose royalist hopes were rising higher every day, though
proud of her brother, regretted his recent advancement in a measure,
because it put on him a prominent mark of the usurper's favour, which
later on could have an adverse influence upon his career. He wrote
to her that no one but an inveterate enemy could say he had got his
promotion by favour. As to his career, he assured her that he looked no
farther forward into the future than the next battlefield.

Beginning the campaign of France in this dogged spirit, General D'Hubert
was wounded on the second day of the battle under Laon. While being
carried off the field he heard that Colonel Feraud, promoted this moment
to general, had been sent to replace him at the head of his brigade.
He cursed his luck impulsively, not being able at the first glance to
discern all the advantages of a nasty wound. And yet it was by this
heroic method that Providence was shaping his future. Travelling slowly
south to his sister's country home under the care of a trusty old
servant, General D'Hubert was spared the humiliating contacts and the
perplexities of conduct which assailed the men of Napoleonic empire at
the moment of its downfall. Lying in his bed, with the windows of his
room open wide to the sunshine of Provence, he perceived t