t the Kalugha river.

It was usual for the army to halt before a beleaguered city and await
the advent in all humility of the vanquished. Commonly it was the mayor
of a town who came, followed by his councillors in their robes, to
explain that the army had abandoned the city, which now begged to throw
itself upon the mercy of the conqueror.

For this the army waited on that sunny September morning.

"He is putting on his robes," they said gaily. "He is new to this work."

But the mayor of Moscow disappointed them. At last the troops moved on
and camped for the night in a village under the Kremlin walls. It was
here that Charles received a note from de Casimir.

"I am slightly wounded," wrote that officer, "but am following the army.
At Borodino my horse was killed under me, and I was thrown. While I
was insensible, I was robbed and lost what money I had, as well as my
despatch-case. In the latter was the letter you wrote to your wife. It
is lost, my friend; you must write another."

Charles was tired. He would put off till to-morrow, he thought, and
write to Desiree from Moscow. As he lay, all dressed on the hard ground,
he fell to thinking of what he should write to Desiree to-morrow from
Moscow. The mere date and address of such a letter would make her love
him the more, he thought; for, like his leaders, he was dazed by a
surfeit of glory.

As he fell asleep smiling at these happy reflections, Desiree, far away
in Dantzig, was locking in her bureau the letter which had been lost
and found again; while, on the deck of his ship, lifting gently to the
tideway where the Vistula sweeps out into the Dantziger Bucht, Louis
d'Arragon stood fingering reflectively in his jacket-pocket the unread
papers which had fallen from the same despatch-case. For it is a very
small world in which to do wrong, though if a man do a little good in
his lifetime it is--heaven knows--soon mislaid and trodden under the
feet of the new-comers.

The next day it was definitely ascertained that the citizens of Moscow
had no communication to make to the conquering leaders. Soon after
daylight the army moved towards the city. The suburbs were deserted. The
houses stood with closed shutters and locked doors. Not so much as a dog
awaited the triumphant entry through the city gates.

Long streets without a living being from end to end met the eyes of
those daring organizers of triumphal entries who had been sent forward
to clear a path and rang