this;
when, had you searched for his virtues as you did for his faults, you,
too, might have known before it was too late what nobility, what beauty,
what strength, were in the character of your poor, poor son!"

"Just Heaven! Madame, you shall not speak of my son as of one dead and
buried! But, if you have some bad news"--

"Your son took your quarrel on his hands, eh?"

"I believe so--I think"--

"Well; I saw him an hour ago in search of your slanderer!"

"He must find him!" said the General, plucking up.

"But if the search is already over," slowly responded Madame.

The father looked one instant in her face, then rose with an
exclamation:

"Where is my son? What has happened? Do you think I am a child, to be
trifled with--a horse to be teased? Tell me of my son!"

Madame was stricken with genuine anguish.

"Take your chair," she begged; "wait; listen; take your chair."

"Never!" cried the General; "I am going to find my son--my God! Madame,
you have _locked this door_! What are you, that you should treat me so?
Give me, this instant"--

"Oh! Monsieur, I beseech you to take your chair, and I will tell you
all. You can do nothing now. Listen! suppose you should rush out and
find that your son had played the coward at last! Sit down and"--

"Ah! Madame, this is play!" cried the distracted man.

"But no; it is not play. Sit down; I want to ask you something."

He sank down and she stood over him, anguish and triumph strangely
mingled in her beautiful face.

"General, tell me true; did you not force this quarrel into your son's
hand? I _know_ he would not choose to have it. Did you not do it to test
his courage, because all these fifteen years you have made yourself a
fool with the fear that he became a student only to escape being a
soldier? Did you not?"

Her eyes looked him through and through.

"And if I did?" demanded he with faint defiance.

"Yes! and if he has made dreadful haste and proved his courage?" asked
she.

"Well, then,"--the General straightened up triumphantly--"then he is my
son!"

He beat the desk.

"And heir to your wealth, for example?"

"Certainly."

The lady bowed in solemn mockery.

"It will make him a magnificent funeral!"

The father bounded up and stood speechless, trembling from head to foot.
Madame looked straight in his eye.

"Your son has met the writer of that article."

"Where?" the old man's lips tried to ask.

"Suddenly, unexpectedly, in a passage