sympathy of an exile towards a prisoner.

That her stupidly jealous husband, fired by the insinuations of
Sarennes, should distort mere civilities into serious intentions,
and bear himself with such a ridiculous assumption of jaundiced
suspicion that a cause for his uneasiness was readily invented by
a scandal-loving garrison, was no doing of mine. Madame Prevost,
with all her charm, had neither experience nor knowledge in such
affairs; she was simply a woman profoundly unhappy and profoundly
ignorant of the world. Could I have honestly offered her my affections
as well as my sympathies, I might have done so, and had them as
honestly returned; but no woman had ever awakened a throb in my
heart since I bade farewell to one in the rue Dauphine in Paris.
She still remained at once my hope and my despair; and, so long as
she lived, other women were as dead to me. I lay claim to no great
fortitude, to no heroic self-denial--it is seldom a man has attained
the results of virtue with as little conscious effort as I was
called upon to exercise.

But the mere knowledge of the integrity of my motives was not
sufficient to protect them from the idle gossip of the town, and
this inconvenience led to an abrupt termination of our intercourse
in the following manner:

One afternoon, when amusing myself and Mme. Prevost by singing
snatches of old songs, I had ended a favourite of hers with a
telling accompaniment and the effective words,

"J'ai perdu mon coeur volage,
Mon honneur, mon avantage,
De moi ne me parle plus,"

when I was surprised by a burst of pretended applause, and turned
to find M. Prevost facing me with a malicious air.

"Believe me, M. le Lieutenant, you have my sincerest sympathy," he
cried, with mock emphasis.

[Illustration: "M. le Lieutenant, you have my sincerest sympathy!"]

"Upon what, sir?"

"Upon the loss of that inestimable jewel, your honour."

"Pardon me, monsieur; that is merely the license of the verse--a
dangerous thing to translate into plain prose."

"I do not seize the distinction, monsieur."

"You are probably not qualified to judge of either one or the other,
M. Prevost."

"Possibly not, M. le Lieutenant, but I am qualified to judge of
the persons I will admit within my doors; and, 'in plain prose,'
I would wish you to understand you are no longer one of them."

"M. le Commissaire, your meaning is as plain as is your manner;
nothing could be more unqualified, and I regre