"Just so. Your letters--your private papers ransacked, and brought in evidence against you. Your conversations with your intimates noted down and attested--every word you dropped in a moment of disappointment or anger; every chance phrase you uttered when provoked, all quoted; wasn't that it?" As he spoke this, with a rapid and almost impetuous utterance, I for the first time, noticed that both the expressions and the accent implied breeding and education. Not all his vehemence could hide the evidences of former cultivation. "How comes it," asked I, eagerly, "that such a man as you are, is to be found thus? You certainly did not always serve in the ranks?" "I had my grade," was his short, dry reply. "You were a quarter-master; perhaps a sous-lieutenant?" said I, hoping by the flattery of the surmise to lead him to talk further. "I was the colonel of a dragoon regiment," said he; sternly; "and that neither the least brave nor the least distinguished in the French army." Ah! thought I, my good fellow, you have shot your bolt too high this time; and in a careless, easy way, I asked, "What might have been the number of the corps?" "How can it concern you?" said he, with a savage vehemence. "You say that you are not a spy. To what end these questions? As it is, you have made this hovel, which has been my shelter for some weeks back, no longer of any service to me. I will not be tracked. I will not suffer espionage, by heaven!" cried he, as he dashed his clenched fist against the ground beside him. His eyes, as he spoke, glared with all the wildness of insanity, and great drops of sweat hung upon his damp forehead. "Is it too much," continued he, with all the vehemence of passion, "is it too much that I was master here? Are these walls too luxurious? Is there the sign of foreign gold in this tasteful furniture and the splendor of these hangings? Or is this"--and he stretched out his lean and naked arms as he spoke--"is this the garb?--is this the garb of a man who can draw at will on the coffers of Royalty? Ay!" cried he, with a wild laugh, "if this is the price of my treachery, the treason might well be pardoned." I did all I could to assuage the violence of his manner. I talked to him calmly and soberly of myself and of him, repeating over and over the assurance that I had neither the will nor the way to injure him. "You may be poor," said I, "and yet scarcely poorer than I am--friendless, and have as many to care for you as I have. Believe me, comrade, save in the matter of a few years the less on one side, and some services the more on the other, there is little to choose between us."