t the lamp-post, De Mauleon passed on:--when another man,
in the uniform of a National Guard, bounded from the door of the tavern,
crying with a loud voice, "Who said De Mauleon?--let me look on him:"
and Victor, who had strode on with slow lion-like steps, cleaving the
crowd, turned, and saw before him in the gleaming light a face, in which
the bold frank, intelligent aspect of former days was lost in a wild,
reckless, savage expression--the face of Armand Monnier.

"Ha! are you really Victor de Mauleon?" asked Monnier, not fiercely, but
under his breath,--in that sort of stage whisper which is the natural
utterance of excited men under the mingled influence of potent drink and
hoarded rage.

"Certainly; I am Victor de Mauleon."

"And you were in command of the--company of the National Guard on the
30th of November at Champigny and Villiers?"

"I was."

"And you shot with your own hand an officer belonging to another company
who refused to join yours?"

"I shot a cowardly soldier who ran away from the enemy, and seemed a
ringleader of other runaways; and in so doing, I saved from dishonour
the best part of his comrades."

"The man was no coward. He was an enlightened Frenchman, and worth fifty
of such aristos as you; and he knew better than his officers that he was
to be led to an idle slaughter. Idle--I say idle. What was France the
better, how was Paris the safer, for the senseless butchery of that day?
You mutinied against a wiser general than Saint Trochu when you murdered
that mutineer."

"Armand Monnier, you are not quite sober to-night, or I would argue with
you that question. But you no doubt are brave: how and why do you take
the part of a runaway?"

"How and why? He was my brother, and you own you murdered him: my
brother--the sagest head in Paris. If I had listened to him, I should
not be,--bah!--no matter now what I am."

"I could not know he was your brother; but if he had been mine I would
have done the same."

Here Victor's lip quivered, for Monnier griped him by the arm, and
looked him in the face with wild stony eyes. "I recollect that voice!
Yet--yet--you say you are a noble, a Vicomte--Victor de Mauleon, and you
shot my brother!"

Here he passed his left hand rapidly over his forehead. The fumes of
wine still clouded his mind, but rays of intelligence broke through the
cloud. Suddenly he said in a loud, and calm, and natural voice:

"Mons. le Vicomte, you accost me as Armand Monnier-