father, Colonel Sortis.

The captain and the lieutenant, on whom their commanding officer was
leaning, attempted to lead him away. He resisted, his eyes full of tears,
which he heroically held back, and murmuring, "No, no, a little while
longer!" he persisted in remaining there, his legs bending under him, at
the side of that pit, which seemed to him bottomless, an abyss into which
had fallen his heart and his life, all that he held dear on earth.

Suddenly, General Ormont came up, seized the colonel by the arm, and
dragging him from the spot almost by force said: "Come, come, my old
comrade! you must not remain here."

The colonel thereupon obeyed, and went back to his quarters. As he opened
the door of his study, he saw a letter on the table. When he took it in
his hands, he was near falling with surprise and emotion; he recognized
his wife's handwriting. And the letter bore the post-mark and the date
of the same day. He tore open the envelope and read:

* * * * *

"Father,

"Permit me to call you still father, as in days gone by. When you receive
this letter, I shall be dead and under the clay. Therefore, perhaps, you
may forgive me.

"I do not want to excite your pity or to extenuate my sin. I only want to
tell the entire and complete truth, with all the sincerity of a woman
who, in an hour's time, is going to kill herself.

"When you married me through generosity, I gave myself to you through
gratitude, and I loved you with all my girlish heart. I loved you as I
loved my own father--almost as much; and one day, while I sat on your
knee, and you were kissing me, I called you 'Father' in spite of myself.
It was a cry of the heart, instinctive, spontaneous. Indeed, you were to
me a father, nothing but a father. You laughed, and you said to me,
'Address me always in that way, my child; it gives me pleasure.'

"We came to the city; and--forgive me, father--I fell in love. Ah! I
resisted long, well, nearly two years--and then I yielded, I sinned, I
became a fallen woman.

"And as to him? You will never guess who he is. I am easy enough about
that matter, since there were a dozen officers always around me and with
me, whom you called my twelve constellations.

"Father, do not seek to know him, and do not hate him. He only did what
any man, no matter whom, would have done in his place, and then I am sure
that he loved me, too, with all his heart.

"But listen! One day we had an