'Ah, me! How an old man's brain wanders! Do you know,' he continued, after a little hesitation, 'I feel the better for having opened my bosom to you, my young friend, and I don't care for making half-confidences. I may trust your discretion, I think,' and he smiled amiably. 'Berthe, my Song-bird, the sunbeam in my house, is the daughter of the boy, the grand-daughter of him I had the misfortune to slay at Metz. No, not to slay,' he added quickly, correcting himself, 'I did not slay him; he rushed on his own death.' 'Did Caroline's mother ever divulge the secret of your confession?' inquired O'Hara. 'Never, oh no! She was one of the old nobility, the mirror of honour. She would not look upon any casualty in an affair of the kind other than as a matter of ordinary course, even of professional necessity, in the life of a soldier.' 'And you never saw Caroline? Did she learn anything about it, do you think?' Captain Chauvin sighed. 'Sometimes I think she did, but I am sure she forgave me if she heard all as it happened. She was too good in herself to think evil of anyone. Ah! my dear sir, she was a woman. The sex, the sex! we, soldiers and men of feeling, ought to have no commerce with it, but be let walk our ways straightly.' O'Hara was fiddling with a certain parcel which he had stolen from his bosom. 'She married a rich politician, one of the damn---- pardon me, my dear sir, one of the bourgeoisie class, and as Louis Philippe was king, the bourgeoisie was everything, and Caroline's husband was a favourite and a great man. I think she married him out of duty to her mother, to save her declining days from poverty. When Louis Philippe was sent to the right-about, the mean bourgeois politician went to the right-about too, and his fortune with him. Poor Caroline had died in giving birth to daughters, twins. Luckily, their nurse, one of the people, had a heart; she kept a wine-shop at Choisy-le-Roi, and she took care of the two poor orphans: yes, they were orphans, for that shabby Orleans rascal, who skirted, was never a real living man, nor his master either. Damn---- pardon me, sir, but Louis Philippe was no king--he was a grocer, sir, a grocer.' 'At best he was a usurper, but a singularly mild one,' remarked O'Hara. 'We shall not talk of him, sir,' said the captain; 'but now let me complete an old man's confidences. I adopted one of those twins, she was so like her mother in manner; she is my housekeeper. If Berthe is my Song-bird, it is Caroline who keeps the nest tidy.' 'That superb brunette!' 'Ah! you think her superb,' cried the aged officer, pleased. 'Superb--that's right; she is the born image of her mother.' 'And the other,' pursued O'Hara eagerly, a dark suspicion taking hold of his imagination.