frowning mountains over there echo with my
shouts--and I'll have none of your English stiffness and reserve and
curbing of enthusiasm to-day. I am a lunatic if you will--an escaped
lunatic--if to be mad with joy be a proof of insanity. Clyffurde, my
dear friend," he added more soberly, "I am honestly sorry for you
to-day."

"Thank you," commented his companion drily. "May I ask how I have
deserved this genuine sympathy?"

"Well! because you are an Englishman, and not a Frenchman," said the
younger man earnestly; "because you--as an Englishman--must desire
Napoleon's downfall, his humiliation, perhaps his death, instead of
exulting in his glory, trusting in his star, believing in him,
following him. If I were not a Frenchman on a day like this, if my
nationality or my patriotism demanded that I should fight against
Napoleon, that I should hate him, or vilify him, I firmly believe that I
would turn my sword against myself, so shamed should I feel in my own
eyes."

It was the Englishman's turn to laugh, and he did it very heartily. His
laugh was quite different to his friend's: it had more enjoyment in it,
more good temper, more appreciation of everything that tends to gaiety
in life and more direct defiance of what is gloomy.

He too had reined in his horse, presumably in order to listen to his
friend's enthusiastic tirades, and as he did so there crept into his
merry, pleasant eyes a quaint look of half contemptuous tolerance
tempered by kindly humour.

"Well, you see, my good de Marmont," he said, still laughing, "you
happen to be a Frenchman, a visionary and weaver of dreams. Believe me,"
he added more seriously, "if you had the misfortune to be a prosy,
shop-keeping Englishman, you would certainly not commit suicide just
because you could not enthuse over your favourite hero, but you would
realise soberly and calmly that while Napoleon Bonaparte is allowed to
rule over France--or over any country for the matter of that--there will
never be peace in the world or prosperity in any land."

The younger man made no reply. A shadow seemed to gather over his
face--a look almost of foreboding, as if Fate that already lay in wait
for the great adventurer, had touched the young enthusiast with a
warning finger.

Whereupon Clyffurde resumed gaily once more:

"Shall we," he said, "go slowly on now as far as the village? It is not
yet ten o'clock. Emery cannot possibly be here before noon."

He put his horse to a walk