and warned him not to
cross the threshold--at all events in the daytime, by reason that the
French were quartered in the house.

Edgar could not explain to himself the irresistible desire which one
day seized him to go out into the corridor. At the very instant that he
did so the door of the room opposite opened, and a French officer came
out meeting him.

"Why how came _you_ here, friend Edgar!" cried the Frenchman. "Welcome
a thousand times!" Edgar had at once recognized him as Colonel la Combe
of the Imperial Guard. Chance had brought this Colonel, just at the
time of Germany's terrible degradation, to his uncle's house, where he
himself was living, having had to abandon his military career. La Combe
came from the south of France. Through the tenderness (by no means a
common characteristic of his nation) with which he dealt with those
who were so bitterly tried, he succeeded in overcoming the deep
dislike--nay, the irreconcilable hatred, which was so firmly rooted in
Edgar's soul against the arrogant foe, and finally, by virtue of
certain traits of character, which placed beyond all doubt the true
nobility of la Combe's nature, in gaming his friendship.

"Edgar," cried the Colonel, "what has brought _you_ to Valenzia?"

It may be imagined how sorely the question embarrassed Edgar. He could
make no reply. The Colonel gazed at him gravely, and said in a serious
tone. "Ah, I understand. You have given the rein to your animosity--you
have drawn your sword for the imagined freedom of a nation of madmen,
and I cannot blame you for it. I should be forming a very poor opinion
of your friendship if I could suppose you capable of imagining that I
could betray you. No, my friend; now that I have found you, you are in
absolute safety for the first time. From this moment you shall be
nobody but the commercial traveller of a German house of business in
Marseilles, an old acquaintance of mine. So no more about that." Much
as it distressed Edgar, la Combe did not rest until he quitted his
hermitage, and shared with him the better quarters provided for him by
Don Rafaele.

Edgar hastened to acquaint the suspicious Spaniard with all the
circumstances of the case, and his previous relations with la Combe.
Don Rafaele restricted himself to the answer, delivered in a grave and
dry manner--

"Really; that is a very curious chance indeed!"

The Colonel sympathized keenly with Edgar's position. At the same time
he could not divest