without the breath I should die!" exclaimed Clerambault.

In a man of thought there is a wide interval between the word and the
deed. Even when a thing is decided upon, he finds pretexts for putting
it off to another day, for he sees only too clearly what will follow;
what pains and troubles. And to what end? In order to calm his
restless soul he pours out a flood of energetic language on his
intimate friends, or to himself alone, and in this way gains the
illusion of action cheaply enough. In the bottom of his heart he does
not believe in it, but like Hamlet, he waits till circumstances shall
force his hand.

Clerambault was brave enough when he was talking to the indulgent
Perrotin, but he had scarcely got home when he was seized again by his
hesitations. Sharpened by his sorrow, his sensitiveness anticipated
the emotions of those around him; he imagined the discord that his
words would cause between himself and his wife, and worse, without
exactly knowing why, he was not sure of his daughter's sympathy, and
shrank from the trial. The risk was too great for an affectionate
heart like his.

Matters stood thus, when a doctor of his acquaintance wrote that he
had a man dangerously wounded in his hospital who had been in the
great Champagne offensive, and had known Maxime. Clerambault went at
once to see him.

On the bed he saw a man who might have been of any age. He lay still
on his back, swathed like a mummy, his thin peasant-face all wrinkled
and brown, with the big nose and grey beard emerging from the white
bandages. Outside the sheet you could see his right hand, rough and
work-worn; a joint of the middle-finger was missing--but that did not
matter, it was a peace injury. His eyes looked out calmly under the
bushy eyebrows; their clear grey light was unexpected in the burned
face.

Clerambault came close and asked him how he did, and the man thanked
him politely, without giving details, as if it were not worth the
trouble to talk about oneself.

"You are very good, Sir. I am getting on all right." But Clerambault
persisted affectionately, and it did not take long for the grey eyes
to see that there was something deeper than curiosity in the blue eyes
that bent over him.

"Where are you wounded?" asked Clerambault.

"Oh, a little of everywhere; it would take too long to tell you, Sir."
But as his visitor continued to press him:

"There is a wound wherever they could find a place. Shot up, all over