eeking to
understand the affair better. He evidently recognised the effects of one
of those new explosives which he himself had studied, almost created. In
the present case, however, he must have been puzzled, for there were
characteristic signs and traces the significance of which escaped him.

"And so," he at last made up his mind to ask, carried away by
professional curiosity, "and so it was a laboratory explosion which put
you in this nice condition? What devilish powder were you concocting
then?"

Guillaume, ever since he had seen Bertheroy thus studying his injury,
had, in spite of his sufferings, given marked signs of annoyance and
agitation. And as if the real secret which he wished to keep lay
precisely in the question now put to him, in that powder, the first
experiment with which had thus injured him, he replied with an air of
restrained ardour, and a straight frank glance: "Pray do not question me,
master. I cannot answer you. You have, I know, sufficient nobility of
nature to nurse me and care for me without exacting a confession."

"Oh! certainly, my friend," exclaimed Bertheroy; "keep your secret. Your
discovery belongs to you if you have made one; and I know that you are
capable of putting it to the most generous use. Besides, you must be
aware that I have too great a passion for truth to judge the actions of
others, whatever their nature, without knowing every circumstance and
motive."

So saying, he waved his hand as if to indicate how broadly tolerant and
free from error and superstition was that lofty sovereign mind of his,
which in spite of all the orders that bedizened him, in spite of all the
academical titles that he bore as an official _savant_, made him a man of
the boldest and most independent views, one whose only passion was truth,
as he himself said.

He lacked the necessary appliances to do more than dress the wound, after
making sure that no fragment of any projectile had remained in the flesh.
Then he at last went off, promising to return at an early hour on the
morrow; and, as the priest escorted him to the street door, he spoke some
comforting words: if the bone had not been deeply injured all would be
well.

On returning to the bedside, Pierre found his brother still sitting up
and seeking fresh energy in his desire to write home and tranquillise his
loved ones. So the priest, after providing pen and paper, again had to
take up the lamp and light him. Guillaume fortunately reta