ral commanding the
division, as _officier d'ordonnance_. It was in Strasbourg, and in this
agreeable and important garrison, they were enjoying greatly a short
interval of peace. They were enjoying it, though both intensely warlike,
because it was a sword-sharpening, firelock-cleaning peace dear to a
military heart and undamaging to military prestige inasmuch that no one
believed in its sincerity or duration.

Under those historical circumstances so favourable to the proper
appreciation of military leisure Lieutenant D'Hubert could have been
seen one fine afternoon making his way along the street of a cheerful
suburb towards Lieutenant Feraud's quarters, which were in a private
house with a garden at the back, belonging to an old maiden lady.

His knock at the door was answered instantly by a young maid in Alsatian
costume. Her fresh complexion and her long eyelashes, which she lowered
modestly at the sight of the tall officer, caused Lieutenant D'Hubert,
who was accessible to esthetic impressions, to relax the cold, on-duty
expression of his face. At the same time he observed that the girl had
over her arm a pair of hussar's breeches, red with a blue stripe.

"Lieutenant Feraud at home?" he inquired benevolently.

"Oh, no, sir. He went out at six this morning."

And the little maid tried to close the door, but Lieutenant D'Hubert,
opposing this move with gentle firmness, stepped into the anteroom
jingling his spurs.

"Come, my dear. You don't mean to say he has not been home since six
o'clock this morning?"

Saying these words, Lieutenant D'Hubert opened without ceremony the
door of a room so comfortable and neatly ordered that only from internal
evidence in the shape of boots, uniforms and military accoutrements, did
he acquire the conviction that it was Lieutenant Feraud's room. And he
saw also that Lieutenant Feraud was not at home. The truthful maid had
followed him and looked up inquisitively.

"H'm," said Lieutenant D'Hubert, greatly disappointed, for he had
already visited all the haunts where a lieutenant of hussars could be
found of a fine afternoon. "And do you happen to know, my dear, why he
went out at six this morning?"

"No," she answered readily. "He came home late at night and snored. I
heard him when I got up at five. Then he dressed himself in his oldest
uniform and went out. Service, I suppose."

"Service? Not a bit of it!" cried Lieutenant D'Hubert. "Learn, my child,
that he went out so