was heavy, he stammered out:

"Thank you, captain, thank you--for myself and my son. I shall never
forget your behaviour on this occasion. Here's good luck to you!"

His eyes and nose were full of tears, and he sat down, finding nothing
more to say.

Jean, who was laughing, spoke in his turn:

"It is I," said he, "who ought to thank my friends here, my excellent
friends," and he glanced at Mme. Rosemilly, "who have given me such a
touching evidence of their affection. But it is not by words that I can
prove my gratitude. I will prove it to-morrow, every hour of my life,
always, for our friendship is not one of those which fade away."

His mother, deeply moved, murmured: "Well said, my boy."

But Beausire cried out:

"Come, Mme. Rosemilly, speak on behalf of the fair sex."

She raised her glass, and in a pretty voice, slightly touched with
sadness, she said: "I will pledge you to the memory of M. Marechal."

There was a few moments' lull, a pause for decent meditation, as after
prayer. Beausire, who always had a flow of compliment, remarked:

"Only a woman ever thinks of these refinements." Then turning to Father
Roland: "And who was this Marechal, after all? You must have been very