ll know it and remember me. It is a question, Mademoiselle,
of secret societies. You know that Prussia is riddled with them."

Mathilde did not answer. He studied her face, which was clean cut and
hard like a marble bust--a good face to hide a secret.

"It is my duty to watch here in Dantzig and to report to the Emperor.
In serving myself I could also perhaps serve a friend, one who might
otherwise run into danger--who may be in danger while you and I stand
here. For the Emperor strikes hard and quickly. I speak of your father,
Mademoiselle--and of the Tugendbund."

Still he could not see from the pale profile whether Mathilde knew
anything at all.

"And if I procure information for you?" asked she at length, in a quiet
and collected voice.

"You will help me to attain a position such as I could ask--even you--to
share with me. And you would do your father no harm. You would even
render him a service. For all the secret societies in Germany will not
stop Napoleon. It is only God who can stop him now, Mademoiselle. All
men who attempt it will only be crushed beneath the wheels. I might save
your father."

But Mathilde did not seem to be thinking of her father.

"I am hampered by poverty," de Casimir said, changing his ground. "In
the old days it did not matter. But now, in the Empire, one must be
rich. I shall be rich--at the end of this campaign."

Again his voice was sincere, and again her eyes responded. He made a
step forward, and gently taking her hand, he raised it to his lips.

"You will help me!" he said, and, turning abruptly on his heel, he left
her.

De Casimir's quarters were in the Langenmarkt. On returning to them, he
took from his despatch-case a letter which he turned over thoughtfully
in his hand. It was addressed to Desiree, and sealed carefully with a
wafer.

"She may as well have it," he said. "It will be as well that she should
be occupied with her own affairs."

CHAPTER VIII. A VISITATION.

Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so.

Whenever Papa Barlasch caught sight of his unwilling host's face, he
turned his own aside with a despairing upward nod. Once or twice, during
the early days of his occupation of the room behind the kitchen in the
Frauengasse, he smote himself sharply on the brow, as if calling upon
his brain to make an effort. But afterwards he seemed to resign himself
to this lapse of memory, and the upward despairing nod gradually los