. That his name is not Sebastian at all.
That he is a Frenchman who escaped the guillotine. What do I know? It is
the gossip of the cafes. But I tell it you because we are friends, you
and I. And some day I may want you to do something for me. One thinks
of one's self, eh? It is good to make friends. For some day one may want
them. That is why I do it. I think of myself. An old soldier. Of the
Guard."

With many gestures of tremendous import, and a face all wrinkled and
twisted with mystery, he returned to the kitchen.

Mathilde was not to return until late. She had gone to the house of the
old Grafin whose reminiscences had been a fruitful topic at Desiree's
wedding. After dining there she and the Grafin were to go together to
a farewell reception given by the Governor. For Rapp was bound for the
frontier with the rest, and was to go to the war as first aide-de-camp
to the Emperor.

Mathilde could not be back until ten o'clock. She, who was so quick and
quiet, had been much occupied in social observances lately, and had made
fast friends with the Grafin during the last few days, constantly going
to see her.

Desiree knew that what Barlasch had repeated as the gossip of the cafes
was in part, if not wholly, true. She and Mathilde had long known that
any mention of France had the instant effect of turning their father
into a man of stone. It was the skeleton in this quiet house that sat at
table with its inmates, a shadowy fourth tying their tongues. The rattle
of its bones seemed to paralyze Sebastian's mind, and at any moment he
would fall into a dumb and stricken apathy which terrified those about
him. At such times it seemed that one thought in his mind had swallowed
all the rest, so that he heard without understanding and saw without
perceiving.

He was in such a humour when he came back to dinner. He passed Desiree
on the stairs without speaking and went to his room to change his
clothes, for he never relaxed his formal habits. At the dinner-table he
glanced at her as a dog, knowing that he is ill, may be seen to glance
with a secret air at his master, wondering whether he is detected.

Desiree had always hoped that her father would speak to her when this
humour was upon him and tell her the meaning of it. Perhaps it would
come to-night, when they were alone. There was an unspoken sympathy
existing between them in which Mathilde took no share, which had even
shut out Charles as out of a room where there was