ved to give
Bibi a decent funeral; and in order that his friends who had crossed
the river might have an opportunity of assisting at it, a _lettre de
faire part_ was published in the newspapers. The Committee who had
these matters in charge made an attempt to get a Pope from the Russian
Church to officiate; but the holy men were scandalised by the request,
and refused it with contumely. So a civil funeral was the best that
could be achieved.

On a drizzling, dismal December morning, then, we formed ourselves in
a procession of two abreast, and starting from the Place St. Michel,
followed Bibi up his familiar Boulevard to the Cemetery of
Montparnasse; and men who would have spurned him yesterday, bared
their heads as he passed, and women crossed themselves and muttered
prayers. We must have been about a hundred strong, and quite a quarter
of our numbers came from beyond the bridges, responsive to our _lettre
de faire part_. A student was told off to march with each visitor; and
this arrangement proved the means of my being able to supply the
missing chapter of Bibi's story.

The person to whom I found myself assigned was an elderly,
military-looking man, with the red rosette in his buttonhole;
extremely well-dressed and groomed; erect, ruddy, bright-eyed; with
close-cropped white hair, and a drooping white moustache: the picture
of a distinguished, contented, fine old French gentleman: whom I
marvelled a good deal to see in this conjunction.

On our way to the graveyard we spoke but little. Our business there
over, however, he offered me a seat in his carriage, a brougham that
had sauntered after us, for the return. And no sooner was the carriage
door closed upon us than he began--

'I am an old man. I want to talk. Will you listen?

'This death, this funeral, have stirred me deeply. I knew Kasghine
years ago in Russia, when we were both young men, he an officer in the
Russian army, I an attache to the French Embassy.

'His career has been a very sad one. It illustrates many sad truths.

'Sometimes--it is trite to say so--an act of baseness, a crime of some
sort, may be the beginning, the first cause, of a man's salvation. It
pulls him up, wakes his conscience. Aghast at what he has done, he
reflects, repents, reforms. That is a comforting circumstance, a token
of God's goodness.

'But what shall we say when the exact opposite happens? When it is an
act of nobility, of splendid heroism, of magnificent self-devo