They were announced to him in a letter which arrived almost immediately, in reply to his, and which ordered him to consider himself strictly under arrest, "until a decision should be reached on the subject of the provisions of law concerning his case." Below this threatening line the colonel had written his name, "Charbonnier." The ferocious curl of the C, and the vigor of the concluding flourish proved that the plebeian officer, entrusted by the hierarchy with the right to punish the aristocratic officer, was hardly putting in practice the sage recommendation of the regulation concerning internal government: "Calmness on the part of the superior officer shows that in inflicting punishment he is animated only by the good of the service and by a realization of his duty." What did Landri care for such a trifle? Having read this laconic and imperious message, he looked at the clock on the mantel-piece, as he had looked at the clock on the front of the church at Hugueville. The hands pointed to one o'clock. His mind reverted to the melancholy ceremony, the vision of which, suddenly evoked, had effected that abrupt change in his resolution. It was all over long ago. Doubtless M. de Claviers had returned to Grandchamp. The dead man was laid to rest in the grave which the workmen would have filled by evening. "This is my 'Here lies,' this paper," thought the young man, pushing away the colonel's letter, "the 'Here lies' of the soldier." This coincidence between the burial of his real father and the event that put an end to his career as an officer, tore his heart. "At all events," he added, "before I go before the court-martial, I shall have a little solitude." He looked about him, to allay his soreness of heart in the security of his prison. How many hours he had passed in that salon-library in the last three years, reading and writing--and dreaming of Valentine! He took from his table drawer a case containing a portrait, the only one that he had of her. It was a head only, which he had cut from a group taken by an amateur in the country. To separate it from the others he had had to cut off the wings of the broad garden hat she wore. But the pure, intelligent glance, the half-smile, the pose, slightly inclined, of the lovely head,--ah! it was all Valentine! He gazed long at those features which he had seen alight with love, upon which his lips had drunk burning kisses, and he said aloud:-- "I have sacrificed the other thing; I will not sacrifice her!"