brows he looked at her with a gleam of cunning.
He went to the door and, turning there, pointed the finger of scorn at
Lisa, stout and tearful. He gave a short laugh of a low-born contempt,
and departed without further parley.

On the doorstep he paused to put on his boots and button his gaiters,
stooping clumsily with a groan beneath his burden of haversack and kit.
Desiree, who had had time to go upstairs to her bedroom, ran after him
as he descended the steps. She had her purse in her hand, and she thrust
it into his, quickly and breathlessly.

"If you take it," she said, "I shall know that we are friends."

He took it ungraciously enough. It was a silken thing with two small
rings to keep the money in place, and he looked at it with a grimace,
weighing it in his hand. It was very light.

"Money," he said. "No, thank you. To get drink with, and be degraded and
sent to prison. Not for me, madame. No, thank you. One thinks of one's
career."

And with a gruff laugh of worldly wisdom he continued his way down
the worn steps, never looking back at her as she stood in the sunlight
watching him, with the purse in her hand.

So in his old age Papa Barlasch was borne forward to the war on that
human tide which flooded all Lithuania, and never ebbed again, but sank
into the barren ground, and was no more seen.

As the slow autumn approached, it became apparent that Dantzig no longer
interested the watchers. Vilna became the base of operations. Smolensk
fell, and, most wonderful of all, the Russians were retiring on Moscow.
Dantzig was no longer on the route. For a time it was of the world
forgotten, while, as Barlasch had predicted, free men continued at
liberty, though their names had an evil savour, while innocent persons
in prison were left to rot there.

Desiree continued to receive letters from her husband, full of love and
war. For a long time he lingered at Konigsberg, hoping every day to be
sent forward. Then he followed Murat across the Niemen, and wrote of
weary journeys over the rolling plains of Lithuania.

Towards the end of July he mentioned curtly the arrival of de Casimir at
head-quarters.

"With him came a courier," wrote Charles, "bringing your dead letter. I
don't believe you love me as I love you. At all events, you do not seem
to tell me that you do so often as I want to tell you. Tell me what you
do and think every moment of the day...." And so on. Charles seemed
to write as easily as he talke