I have never receded before real danger, ladies.
It is, therefore, permissible, at eighty-two years of age, not to be
brave in presence of imaginary danger.

"That affair so completely upset me, caused me such deep and mysterious
and terrible distress, that I never spoke of it to any one. I will now
tell it to you exactly as it happened, without any attempt at
explanation.

"In July, 1827, I was stationed at Rouen. One day as I was walking along
the quay I met a man whom I thought I recognized without being able to
recall exactly who he was. Instinctively I made a movement to stop. The
stranger perceived it and at once extended his hand.

"He was a friend to whom I had been deeply attached as a youth. For five
years I had not seen him; he seemed to have aged half a century. His hair
was quite white and he walked bent over as though completely exhausted.
He apparently understood my surprise, and he told me of the misfortune
which had shattered his life.

"Having fallen madly in love with a young girl, he had married her, but
after a year of more than earthly happiness she died suddenly of an
affection of the heart. He left his country home on the very day of her
burial and came to his town house in Rouen, where he lived, alone and
unhappy, so sad and wretched that he thought constantly of suicide.

"'Since I have found you again in this manner,' he said, 'I will ask you
to render me an important service. It is to go and get me out of the desk
in my bedroom--our bedroom--some papers of which I have urgent
need. I cannot send a servant or a business clerk, as discretion and
absolute silence are necessary. As for myself, nothing on earth would
induce me to reenter that house. I will give you the key of the room,
which I myself locked on leaving, and the key of my desk, also a few
words for my gardener, telling him to open the chateau for you. But come
and breakfast with me tomorrow and we will arrange all that.'

"I promised to do him the slight favor he asked. It was, for that matter,
only a ride which I could make in an hour on horseback, his property
being but a few miles distant from Rouen.

"At ten o'clock the following day I breakfasted, tete-a-tete, with my
friend, but he scarcely spoke.

"He begged me to pardon him; the thought of the visit I was about to make
to that room, the scene of his dead happiness, overcame him, he said. He,
indeed, seemed singularly agitated and preoccupied, as though undergoing
so