n she moved
toward Burle and said coaxingly: "What, are you going already, Captain?"

"Yes, he's going," brutally answered Laguitte, "and I don't intend to
let him set foot here again."

The little maid felt frightened and pulled her mistress back by the
skirt of her dress; in doing so she imprudently murmured the word
"drunkard" and thereby brought down the slap which the major's hand
had been itching to deal for some time past. Both women having stooped,
however, the blow only fell on Phrosine's back hair, flattening her cap
and breaking her comb. The domino players were indignant.

"Let's cut it," shouted Laguitte, and he pushed Burle on the pavement.
"If I remained I should smash everyone in the place."

To cross the square they had to wade up to their ankles in mud. The
rain, driven by the wind, poured off their faces. The captain walked on
in silence, while the major kept on reproaching him with his cowardice
and its disastrous consequences. Wasn't it sweet weather for tramping
the streets? If he hadn't been such an idiot they would both be warmly
tucked in bed instead of paddling about in the mud. Then he spoke of
Gagneux--a scoundrel whose diseased meat had on three separate occasions
made the whole regiment ill. In a week, however, the contract would come
to an end, and the fiend himself would not get it renewed.

"It rests with me," the major grumbled. "I can select whomsoever I
choose, and I'd rather cut off my right arm than put that poisoner in
the way of earning another copper."

Just then he slipped into a gutter and, half choked by a string of
oaths, he gasped:

"You understand--I am going to rout up Gagneux. You must stop outside
while I go in. I must know what the rascal is up to and if he'll dare to
carry out his threat of informing the colonel tomorrow. A butcher--curse
him! The idea of compromising oneself with a butcher! Ah, you aren't
over-proud, and I shall never forgive you for all this."

They had now reached the Place aux Herbes. Gagneux's house was quite
dark, but Laguitte knocked so loudly that he was eventually admitted.
Burle remained alone in the dense obscurity and did not even attempt to
seek any shelter. He stood at a corner of the market under the pelting
rain, his head filled with a loud buzzing noise which prevented him
from thinking. He did not feel impatient, for he was unconscious of the
flight of time. He stood there looking at the house, which, with its
closed door and