d I'll tell you
in a few words the cause of the poor colonel's ruin--for ruin it is.
Even were all the injustice to be revoked to-morrow, the wreck of his
heart could never be repaired.'

We walked along, side by side, for some time, before Jacques spoke
again, when he gave me, in brief and simple words, the following
sorrowful story. It was such a type of the age, so pregnant with the
terrible lessons of the time, that although not without some misgivings,
I repeat it here as it was told to myself, premising that however
scant may be the reader's faith in many of the incidents of my own
narrative--and I neither beg for his trust in me, nor seek to entrap
it--I implore him to believe that what I am now about to tell was a
plain matter of fact, and, save in the change of one name, not a single
circumstance is owing to imagination.

CHAPTER XLIV. AN EPISODE OF '94

When the French army fell back across the Sambre, after the battle of
Mons, a considerable portion of the rear, who covered the retreat,
were cut off by the enemy, for it became their onerous duty to keep the
allied forces in check, while the Republicans took measures to secure
and hold fast the three bridges over the river. In this service many
distinguished French officers fell, and many more were left badly
wounded on the field; among the latter was a young captain of dragoons,
who, with his hand nearly severed by a sabre-cut, yet found strength
enough to crawl under cover of a hedge, and there lie down in the
fierce resolve to die where he was, rather than surrender himself as a
prisoner.

Although the allied forces had gained the battle, they quickly foresaw
that the ground they had won was untenable; and scarcely had night
closed in when they began their preparations to fall back. With strong
pickets of observation to watch the bridges, they slowly withdrew
their columns towards Mons, posting the artillery on the heights around
Grandrengs. From these movements, the ground of the late struggle became
comparatively deserted, and before day began to dawn, not a sound was
heard over its wide expanse, save the faint moan of a dying soldier, or
the low rumble of a cart, as some spoiler of the dead stole stealthily
along. Among the demoralising effects of war, none was more striking
than the number of the peasantry who betook themselves to this infamous
trade, and who, neglecting all thoughts of honest industry, devoted
themselves to robbery and plund