was ready.

Risler apologized for the trouble he was causing them.

"You are so comfortable, so happy here. Really, it's too bad to burden
you with my melancholy."

"Ah! my old friend, you can arrange just such happiness as ours for
yourself," said honest Sigismond with beaming face. "I have my sister,
you have your brother. What do we lack?"

Risler smiled vaguely. He fancied himself already installed with Frantz
in a quiet little quakerish house like that.

Decidedly, that was an excellent idea of Pere Planus.

"Come to bed," he said triumphantly. "We'll go and show you your room."

Sigismond Planus's bedroom was on the ground floor, a large room simply
but neatly furnished; with muslin curtains at the windows and the bed,
and little squares of carpet on the polished floor, in front of the
chairs. The dowager Madame Fromont herself could have found nothing to
say as to the orderly and cleanly aspect of the place. On a shelf or two
against the wall were a few books: Manual of Fishing, The Perfect Country
Housewife, Bayeme's Book-keeping. That was the whole of the intellectual
equipment of the room.

Pere Planus glanced proudly around. The glass of water was in its place
on the walnut table, the box of razors on the dressing-case.

"You see, Risler. Here is everything you need. And if you should want
anything else, the keys are in all the drawers--you have only to turn
them. Just see what a beautiful view you get from here. It's a little
dark just now, but when you wake up in the morning you'll see; it is
magnificent."

He opened the widow. Great drops of rain were beginning to fall, and
lightning flashes rending the darkness disclosed the long, silent line of
the fortifications, with telegraph poles at intervals, or the frowning
door of a casemate. Now and then the footsteps of a patrol making the
rounds, the clash of muskets or swords, reminded them that they were
within the military zone.

That was the outlook so vaunted by Planus--a melancholy outlook if ever
there were one.

"And now good-night. Sleep well!"

But, as the old cashier was leaving the room, his friend called him back:

"Sigismond."

"Here!" said Sigismond, and he waited.

Risler blushed slightly and moved his lips like a man who is about to
speak; then, with a mighty effort, he said:

"No, no-nothing. Good-night, old man."

In the dining-room the brother and sister talked together a long while in
low tones. Planus described the