lf that the
chain that bound them was indissoluble. The singer's idea was to
profit by it. Her demands for money were constant: she harried her
lover for money.

Little by little, Vinson's mother cut off supplies: the corporal,
incapable of breaking with Nichoune, ran up debts in the town.

"But," went on Vinson, "this is only the beginning. I have told you
this, Monsieur, with the hope of excusing myself to a certain extent
for what I did later on. My actions were the outcome and consequences
of my difficulties."

"Something serious?" questioned Fandor.

"You shall judge of that, Monsieur."

Vinson went on with his confession in a firmer tone. Fandor realised
that the corporal had decided to make a clean breast of it.

"It sometimes happened after I had had a scene with Nichoune, and had
quitted her in a fury, that I would go for a long bicycle ride into
the country, taking my shame and rage with me. On a certain Saturday,
bestriding my faithful bike, I went for a spin along the dusty
high-road which runs past the camp. After going at high speed, I
dismounted, seated myself under a tree in the shade, by the side of a
ditch, and was falling asleep. It was summer, the sun was pouring
down. A cyclist stopped in front of me with a punctured tyre. He asked
me to lend him the wherewithal to repair it; and whilst the solution
was drying we started talking.

"This individual was about thirty; elegantly dressed; and from the way
he expressed himself, one could see that he was a man accustomed to
good society.

"He told me he was making a tour, and was now doing the neighbourhood
about Reims and Chalons.

"'Not very picturesque country,' I remarked.

"But he retorted;

"'It is interesting--the roads, for example, are complicated!'

"I began to laugh at this, and as he insisted on the difficulty he had
to find his way in these parts, I offered to let him look at my
Staff-office map. I carried a copy in my blazer.... Ah, Monsieur--how
well Alfred played his little comedy! That is what he called himself,
at least, that was the name he was known by--the only name I have ever
known. He seemed absolutely stupefied at the sight of this map,
ordinary though as it was, and seemed set on buying it from me. I did
not want to part with it. He offered five francs for it. I expressed
my astonishment that he would not wait till he got to Chalons, where
he could procure one like it for the sum of twenty sous.

"'Bah!' declared