e seized are by right the
property of the Convention, and they might compel me to surrender them.
Thus they would pass from my hands into those of some statesman-brigand,
who, under the plea of seizing these treasures for the coffers of the
nation, would transfer them to his own. Would you rather help such an
one to profit than me, Caron? Have you so far forgotten how we suffered
together--almost in the self-same cause--at Bellecour, in the old days?
Have you forgotten the friendship that linked us later, in Paris, when
the Revolution was in its dawn? Have you forgotten what I have endured
at the hands of this infernal class that you can feel no sympathy for
me? Caron, it is a measure of revenge, and as there is a Heaven, a very
mild one. Me they robbed of more than life; them I deprive but of their
jewels and their plate, turning them destitute upon the world. Bethink
you of my girl-wife, Caron," he added, furiously, "and of how she died
of grief and shame a short three months after our hideous nuptials.
God in Heaven! When the memory of it returns to me I marvel at my own
forbearance. I marvel that I do not take every man and woman of them
that fall into my hands and flog them to death as they would have
flogged you when you sought--alas to so little purpose--to intervene on
my behalf."

He grew silent and thoughtful, and the expression of his face was not
nice. At last: "Have I given you reason enough," he asked, "why you
should not seek to thwart me?"

"Why, yes," answered La Boulaye, "more than was necessary. I am
desolated that I should have brought you to re-open a sorrow that I
thought was healed."

"So it is, Caron. How it is I do not know. Perhaps it is my nature;
perhaps it is that in youth sorrow is seldom long-enduring; perhaps
it is the strenuous life I have lived and the changes that have been
wrought in me--for, after all, there is a little in this Captain
Tardivet that is like the peasant poor Marie took to husband, four years
ago. I am no longer the same man, and among the other things that I
have put from me are the sorrows that were of the old Charlot. But some
memories cannot altogether die, and if to-day I no longer mourn that
poor child, yet the knowledge of the debt that lies 'twixt the noblesse
of France and me is ever present, and I neglect no opportunity of
discharging a part of it. But enough of that, Caron. Tell me of
yourself. It is a full twelvemonth since last we met, and in that time,