"The femur is broken in two places, and splintered. The right leg will be two inches shorter than the left. All the surgeons in Paris could not do him any good." "Then he will be useless for the army!" said Joubert. And I could hear the catching of his breath. "He will never see service," replied Perichaud. A loud smash of crockery came as a reply to the doctor's pronouncement. It was Joubert kicking a great Japanese jar on to the floor. As for me, I had heard the death-sentence of my hopes. I would never wear a sword or lead a company into action. I would be a thing with a lame leg--a cripple. Fortunately, an opiate which the doctor had given me began to take effect. It did not make me sleepy, but it dulled my thoughts--some of them; others it made more bright. I lay listening to the doctor departing, and watching the red sunset which was dyeing Etiolles, and the woods, and the walls of my bedroom. Then Joubert's words came into my head about Lichtenberg, and the duel the General had fought that morning with Baron Imhoff. I did not feel in the least uneasy about my father, and I was picturing the duel in the woods of Lichtenberg, when a sound through the open window came to my ears. It was a carriage rapidly driving up the distant avenue to the château. It was my father, I felt sure. A long time passed, and then I heard steps on the drawbridge; voices sounded from below. Then came a step on the stairs; my door opened, and a gentleman stood framed in the doorway. I shall never forget my first sight of the Vicomte Armand de Chatellan, my father's cousin on the Saluces' side, and my future guardian. I had never seen him before. He was not, indeed, a sight to come often in a child's way, this flower of the boulevards, seventy if a day, scented, exquisite, with a large impassive, evenly coloured red face, the face of a Roman consul, in which were set the blue eyes of a good-tempered child. This great gentleman, who left the pavements of Paris only once a year for a three weeks' visit to his estates in Auvergne, had travelled express from Paris to tell a child that its father was lying dead, shot through the heart by the Baron Imhoff. And this is how he did it: He made a kindly little bow to me, and indicated Joubert to place a chair by the bedside. "And how are we this evening?" asked he, taking my wrist as a physician might have done to feel my pulse. I did not know who he was. I had vague suspicions that he was another doctor. Never for a moment did I dream he was the bearer of evil tidings. I said I was better--that old reply of the sick child--and he talked on various subjects: the airiness of the room, the beauty of the woods, and so forth. Then, to Joubert: "Distinctly feverish. Must not be disturbed to-night. Ah, yes, in the morning; that will be different. And no more tumbling into gravel pits," finished this astute old gentleman as he glanced back at me before leaving the room.