then he would take her hand, murmuring those words which the woman
divines, without seeming to hear them.

And it was agreed between them that they would love each other without
evidencing it by anything sensual or brutal.

She would have remained indefinitely at this stage of intimacy, but he
wanted more. And every day he urged her more hotly to give in to his
ardent desire.

She resisted, would not hear of it, seemed determined not to give way.

But one evening she said to him casually: "My husband has just gone to
Marseilles. He will be away four days."

Jean de Carmelin threw himself at her feet, imploring her to open her
door to him that very night at eleven o'clock. But she would not listen
to him, and went home, appearing to be annoyed.

The commandant was in a bad humor all the evening, and the next morning
at dawn he went out on the ramparts in a rage, going from one exercise
field to the other, dealing out punishment to the officers and men as
one might fling stones into a crowd.

On going in to breakfast he found an envelope under his napkin with
these four words: "To-night at ten." And he gave one hundred sous
without any reason to the waiter.

The day seemed endless to him. He passed part of it in curling his hair
and perfuming himself.

As he was sitting down to the dinner-table another envelope was handed
to him, and in it he found the following telegram:

"My Love: Business completed. I return this evening on the nine
o'clock train.
PARISSE."

The commandant let loose such a vehement oath that the waiter dropped
the soup-tureen on the floor.

What should he do? He certainly wanted her, that very, evening at
whatever cost; and he would have her. He would resort to any means, even
to arresting and imprisoning the husband. Then a mad thought struck him.
Calling for paper, he wrote the following note:

MADAME: He will not come back this evening, I swear it to
you,--and I shall be, you know where, at ten o'clock. Fear nothing.
I will answer for everything, on my honor as an officer.
JEAN DE CARMELIN.

And having sent off this letter, he quietly ate his dinner.

Toward eight o'clock he sent for Captain Gribois, the second in command,
and said, rolling between his fingers the crumpled telegram of Monsieur
Parisse:

"Captain, I have just received a telegram of a very singular nature,
which it is impossible for me to communicate to you.