me as I
have told you, and ended by throwing me into a dungeon. They loaded me
with chains, too, though the walls were ten feet thick, and the door
iron, and bolted and double-bolted outside. And there for months and
years, in spite of wounds, hunger, thirst, and all the tortures those
cowards made me suffer, I lived, because, Rose, I had promised some one
at that gate there (and he turned suddenly and pointed to it) that I
would come back alive. At last, one night, my jailer came to my
cell drunk. I seized him by the throat and throttled him till he was
insensible; his keys unlocked my fetters, and locked him in the cell,
and I got safely outside. But there a sentinel saw me, and fired at
me. He missed me but ran after me, and caught me. You see I was stiff,
confined so long. He gave me a thrust of his bayonet; I flung my heavy
keys fiercely in his face; he staggered; I wrested his piece from him,
and disabled him."

"Ah!"

"I crossed the frontier in the night, and got to Bayonne; and thence,
day and night, to Paris. There I met a reward for all my anguish. They
gave me the epaulets of a colonel. See, here they are. France does not
give these to traitors, young lady." He held them out to her in both
hands. She eyed them half stupidly; all her thoughts were on the
oak-tree hard by. She began to shudder. Camille was telling the truth.
She felt that; she saw it; and Josephine was hearing it. "Ay! look at
them, you naughty girl," said Camille, trying to be jocose over it all
with his poor trembling lip. He went on to say that from the moment he
had left dark Spain, and entered fair France everybody was so kind, so
sympathizing. "They felt for the poor worn soldier coming back to his
love. All but you, Rose. You told me I was a traitor to her and to
France."

"I was told so," said Rose, faintly. She was almost at her wits' end
what to say or do.

"Well, are you sorry or not sorry for saying such a cruel thing to a
poor fellow?"

"Sorry, very sorry," whispered Rose. She could not persist in injustice,
yet she did not want Josephine to hear.

"Then say no more about it; there's my hand. You are not a soldier, and
did not know what you were talking about."

"I am very sorry I spoke so harshly to you. But you understand. How you
look; how you pant."

"There, I will show you I forgive you. These epaulets, dear, I have
never put them on. I said, no; Josephine shall put them on for me. I
will take honor as well as hap