d upon the bayonets of certain soldiers on
the level below. Felicie shrank at the announcement, yet could hardly
have been unprepared for it: "Someone opened from within a moment ago,
sir, and darted back at sight of the cap and buttons."

"Bring two men and come in," was the brief answer, and then with lighted
candles and a lantern a search began, a search for many minutes utterly
without result, though another sergeant came and the officer of the day,
and all this time Felicie was begging to be restored to Madame, who
would assuredly again be prostrated and in need of her, and Dwight said,
"Let her go," whereat, as was noted, she darted first to her own room,
not to Madame's, and presently the search began again on the second
floor; and, to the amaze of the domestics aloft, soon invaded the very
garret itself, where first there was found the print of stocking feet on
a dusty plank, just as from under a box in the kitchen a pair of shoes
were pulled forth never worn by any authorized inmate of those quarters.
Then more lanterns went up the back stairs and more prodding followed in
the loft, and presently the watchers below heard stifled sounds of
excitement and scurry, and then, wild-eyed and striving to be strictly
professional, Sergeant Jennison descended and said: "We've got him, sir.
He's chokin' like."

And presently again, limp, half-suffocated, smeared with dust and dirt,
in shirt sleeves and trousers coated with cobwebs and lint, there was
lowered to the second floor and shoved out on the landing at the head of
the stairs an almost unrecognizable creature, still struggling for
breath. "No man that wasn't made of rubber instead of flesh and bones
could have doubled himself in where he was," said the corporal to the
silent group, and, indeed, it looked as though he were doubling up
again, for the knees gave way, the head fell forward, and but for
restraining arms down would he have gone. The sergeant propped him up
again. The doctor plied a wet sponge, and Felicie, at the door of her
mistress' chamber, gasped in amaze: "_Mon Dieu!_ the miscreant who has
terrified Madame!" Whereat the dull eyes of the miscreant began slowly
to burn, and then to blaze; and, finally, as a faint color showed in his
sallow cheek, and the officer of the day, his official captor, bluntly
demanded explanation of his being in this house and at this time of
night, and both he and Waring and the adjutant, too, as it later
appeared, had all