thorough ducking!"

"I thank you," said the General, as he was about to leave the room. "I
will talk to you about this tomorrow. The night brings counsel."

Wrapped in thought, he made his way to the little suite of apartments
between the ground floor and the first story which he occupied, and
which had a separate door opening on the Rue de Bellechase.

At the foot of the stairs, in a coach-house which had been transformed
into a chamber, slept the orderlies beneath the apartment of their
chief. This apartment, composed of four rooms, was of the utmost
simplicity, harmonizing with the poverty of its occupant, who made it a
point of honor not to attempt to disguise his situation.

The ante-chamber formed a military bureau for the General and his chief
orderly.

The salon, hung with draperies to simulate a tent, had no other
decoration than some trophies of Arabian arms, souvenirs of raids upon
rebellious tribes.

More primitive still was the bedroom, furnished with a simple canteen
bed, as if it were put up in a temporary camp, soon to be abandoned.

The only room which suggested nothing of the anchorite was the
dressing-room, furnished with all the comforts and conveniences
necessary to an elegant and fastidious man of the world.

But his real luxury, which, by habit and by reason of his rank, the
General had always maintained, was found among his horses, as he devoted
to them all the available funds that could be spared from his salary.
Hence the four box-stalls placed at his disposal in the stables of his
brother-in-law were occupied by four animals of remarkably pure blood,
whose pedigrees were inscribed in the French stud-book. Neither years,
nor the hard service which their master had seen, had deteriorated any
of his ability as a dashing horseman. His sober and active life having
even enabled him to preserve a comparatively slender figure, he would
have joined victoriously in the races, except that his height made his
weight too heavy for that amusement.

Entering his own domain, still overwhelmed, with the shock of the
revelations and the gossip of which he never had dreamed, he felt
himself wounded to the quick in all those sentiments upon which his
'amour propre' had been most sensitive.

The more he pondered proudly over his pecuniary misfortunes, the
more grave the situation appeared to him, and the more imperious the
necessity of a rupture.

When it had been a question of dismissing Fanny Dorvil