d here he is.
By Jove, he is a clever fellow. I suppose he came here as soon as the
war broke out, knowing very well that the police would have plenty of
other things to think of besides inquiring as to the antecedents of
Englishmen who took up their residence here. Of course he has been
absolutely safe since the fall of the Empire. The fellow has grown a
beard and mustache; that is why I did not recognize him at first. Of
course he has taken another name. Well, I don't know that it is any
business of mine. He got off with some money, but I don't suppose it was
any great sum. At any rate it would not be enough to make any material
difference to the creditors of the bank. However, I will think it over
later on. There is no hurry about the matter. He is here till the siege
is over, and I should certainly like to have a talk with him. I have
never been able to get it quite out of my mind that there has been
something mysterious about the whole affair as far as my father was
concerned, though where the mystery comes in is more than I can imagine.
I expect it is simply because I have never liked Brander, and have
always had a strong idea that our popular townsman was at bottom a knave
as well as a humbug."

Mary Brander went about her work very quietly all day, and more than
one of the wounded patients remarked the change in her manner.

"Mademoiselle is suffering to-day," one of them said to her, as he
missed the ring of hopefulness and cheeriness with which she generally
spoke to him.

"I am not feeling well, I have a bad headache; and moreover I have
friends in the sortie that is to be made to-night."

"Ah, yes, mademoiselle, there must be many sad hearts in Paris. As for
me, my spirits have risen since I heard it. At last we are going to
begin in earnest and it is time. I only wish I could have been well
enough to have taken my share in it. It is tiresome to think that I have
been wounded in a trifling skirmish. I should not have minded if it had
been tomorrow, so that, when I am an old man, I might tell my
grandchildren that I got that scar on the day when we drove the
Prussians from the front of Paris. That would have been something to
say. Courage, mademoiselle, after all there are twenty who get through
these things safely, to every one that is hit, and your friends will be
covered with glory."

"I hope that it will be as you think," she said, "but it may be the
other way, and that the sortie will fail."

"Yo