for the future--alone with the greatness to which
his capture of Lusigny was to be the first step. He would enjoy that
greatness not a whit the less because fortune had hitherto dealt out to
him more blows than caresses, and he was still at forty, after a score
of years of roughest service, the governor of a paltry country town.

Meanwhile, in the darkness of the narrow streets, the Vicomte was making
his way to his lodgings in a state of despair difficult to describe,
impossible to exaggerate. Chilled, sobered, and affrighted he looked
back and saw how he had thrown for all and lost all, how he had saved
the dregs of his fortune at the expense of his loyalty, how he had seen
a way of escape--and lost it for ever! No wonder that as he trudged
through the mud and darkness of the sleeping town his breath came
quickly and his chest heaved, and he looked from side to side as a
hunted animal might look, uttering great sighs. Ah, if he could have
retraced the last three hours! If he could have undone that he had done!

In a fever, he entered his lodging, and securing the door behind him
stumbled up the stone stairs and entered his room. The impulse to
confide his misfortunes to some one was so strong upon him that he was
glad to see a dark form half sitting, half lying in a chair before the
dying embers of a wood fire. In those days a man's natural confidant was
his valet, the follower, half friend, half servant, who had been born on
his estate, who lay on a pallet at the foot of his bed, who carried his
_billets-doux_ and held his cloak at the duello, who rode near his
stirrup in fight and nursed him in illness, who not seldom advised him
in the choice of a wife, and lied in support of his suit.

The young Vicomte flung his cloak over a chair. "Get up, you rascal!" he
cried impatiently. "You pig, you dog!" he continued, with increasing
anger. "Sleeping there as though your master were not ruined by that
scoundrel of a Breton! Bah!" he added, gazing bitterly at his follower,
"you are of the _canaille_, and have neither honour to lose nor a town
to betray!"

The sleeping man moved in his chair but did not awake. The Vicomte, his
patience exhausted, snatched the bonnet from his head, and threw it on
the ground. "Will you listen?" he said. "Or go, if you choose look for
another master. I am ruined! Do you hear? Ruined, Gil! I have lost
all--money, land, Lusigny itself--at the cards!"

The man, roused at last, stooped with a