in a curt tone.

Marcel made a low bow, but as he withdraw, he caught an appealing look from
Suzanne.

XXI.

THE PAST.

"Look not upon the past with grief, it
will not come back; wisely improve
the present, it is thine; and go onwards
fearlessly and with a strong heart
towards the mysterious future."

LONGFELLOW (_Hyperion_).

Marcel returned home exceedingly indignant. Although he had not expected an
over-cordial reception from the old Captain, whose irascible character and
surly ways were known to all, he did not think that he would have carried
so far his disregard of the most elementary propriety.

"It serves me right," he said to himself, "what business had I there?
Nevertheless, on reflection, I have lost nothing. My reception by this old
dotard has taken away for ever my wish to go back there: and who knows what
might have happened, if I had had free admission to that house, if I had
met a friendly face and a kindly welcome? Oh, fool! I have found all that
in the sweet look of his adorable daughter, that appealing look which
seemed to implore my indulgence and pardon for the malevolent words of that
ill-bred soldier. Come, think no more of it, drive back to the lowest
depths those foolish thoughts which excite the brain. All that he does, God
does well. I was on the brink of the abyss; one step more and I should have
rolled to the bottom. Let me stop then, there is still time. Let me forget,
forget. Forget! better still, I will write and ask to be changed. Could I
forget her if I were to meet again that burning look, which pursues me to
the steps of the altar, and troubles me to the bottom of my soul?"

He wrote in fact and began his letter ten times afresh. What could he say?
What reason could he bring? He had filled this cure for scarcely six
months. What pretext could he raise before his superiors? And how would any
complaint from him be received at the Palace?

Night came. He felt himself oppressed by a vague and indefinable grief.

Then little by little the present vanished. His infancy rose up before him.
He saw it again as in a glass, smiling, simple, pure; and he forgot himself
in these sweet memories.

In proportion as we advance in life, we are attached to the things of the
past. It clothes itself then with those brilliant colours with which we
love to invest what we have lost. Youthful years, bright with poetry and
sunlight, come and gild the gloomy and prosaic nooks o