ss, was less likely. He was angry as
he thought of it and uneasy as concerned his future in distracted
France. He had questioned Carteaux again and again but had never been
quite satisfied. The theft of the despatch had for a time served his
purpose, but had been of no practical value. The treaty with England
would go to the senate and he return home, a discredited diplomatic
failure. Meanwhile, in the trying heat of summer, as during all the long
winter months, Carteaux lay for the most part abed, in such misery as
might have moved to pity even the man whose bullet had punished him so
savagely. At last he was able to sit up for a time every day and to
arrange with the captain of a French frigate, then in port, for his
return to France.

Late in June he had dismissed Chovet with only a promise to pay what was
in fact hard-earned money. Dr. Glentworth, Washington's surgeon, had
replaced him, and talked of an amputation, upon which, cursing doctors
in general, Carteaux swore that he would prefer to die.

Chovet, who dosed his sick folk with gossip when other means failed,
left with this ungrateful patient one piece of news which excited
Carteaux's interest. Schmidt, he was told, had gone to Europe, and then,
inaccurate as usual, Chovet declared that it was like enough he would
never return, a fact which acquired interest for the doctor himself as
soon as it became improbable that Carteaux would pay his bill. When a
few days later Carteaux learned from De la Foret that his enemy De
Courval was to be absent for several weeks, and perhaps beyond the time
set for his own departure, he began with vengeful hope to reconsider a
situation which had so far seemed without resource.

Resolved at last to make for De Courval all the mischief possible before
his own departure, with such thought as his sad state allowed he had
slowly matured in his mind a statement which seemed to him
satisfactorily malignant. Accordingly on this Fourth of July he sent his
black servant to ask the minister to come to his chamber.

Fauchet, somewhat curious, sat down by the bedside and parting the
chintz curtains, said, "I trust you are better."

The voice which came from the shadowed space within was weak and hoarse.
"I am not better--I never shall be, and I have little hope of reaching
home alive."

"I hoped it not as bad as that."

"And still it is as I say. I do not want to die without confessing to
you the truth about that affair in which I