"Captain, I am about to speak of myself. I have had to force myself to
do so already several times since yesterday, while telling you about
the improvements that I have managed to introduce here; but it was a
question of the interests of the people and the commune, with which mine
are necessarily bound up. But, now, if I tell you my story, I should
have to speak wholly of myself, and mine has not been a very interesting
life."

"If it were as uneventful as La Fosseuse's life," answered Genestas,
"I should still be glad to know about it; I should like to know the
untoward events that could bring a man of your calibre into this
canton."

"Captain, for these twelve years I have lived in silence; and now, as I
wait at the brink of the grave for the stroke that will cast me into
it, I will candidly own to you that this silence is beginning to weigh
heavily upon me. I have borne my sorrows alone for twelve years; I have
had none of the comfort that friendship gives in such full measure to
a heart in pain. My poor sick folk and my peasants certainly set me
an example of unmurmuring resignation; but they know that I at least
understand them and their troubles, while there is not a soul here who
knows of the tears that I have shed, no one to give me the hand-clasp of
a comrade, the noblest reward of all, a reward that falls to the lot of
every other; even Gondrin has not missed that."

Genestas held out his hand, a sudden impulsive movement by which
Benassis was deeply touched.

"There is La Fosseuse," he went on in a different voice; "she perhaps
would have understood as the angels might; but then, too, she might
possibly have loved me, and that would have been a misfortune. Listen,
captain, my confession could only be made to an old soldier who looks as
leniently as you do on the failings of others, or to some young man who
has not lost the illusions of youth; for only a man who knows life
well, or a lad to whom it is all unknown, could understand my story. The
captains of past times who fell upon the field of battle used to make
their last confession to the cross on the hilt of their sword; if there
was no priest at hand, it was the sword that received and kept the
last confidences between a human soul and God. And will you hear and
understand me, for you are one of Napoleon's finest sword-blades, as
thoroughly tempered and as strong as steel? Some parts of my story can
only be understood by a delicate tenderness, and t