About an hour passed; there was another rap at the library door.  Camors felt a slight palpitation and a secret wish that it should prove Mademoiselle Charlotte.

It was the General who entered.  He advanced with measured stride, puffed like some sea-monster, and seized Camors by the lapel of his coat.  Then he said, impressively: 

“Well, young gentleman!”

“Well, General.”

“What are you doing in here?”

“Oh, I am at work.”

“At work?  Um!  Sit down there—­sit down, sit down!” He threw himself on the sofa where Mademoiselle had been, which rather changed the perspective for Camors.

“Well, well!” he repeated, after a long pause.

“But what then, General?”

“What then?  The deuce!  Why, have you not noticed that I have been for some days extraordinarily agitated?”

“No, General, I have not noticed it.”

“You are not very observing!  I am extraordinarily agitated—­enough to fatigue the eyes.  So agitated, upon my word of honor, that there are moments when I am tempted to believe your aunt is right:  that I have disease of the heart!”

“Bah, General!  My aunt is dreaming; you have the pulse of an infant.”

“You believe so, really?  I do not fear death; but it is always annoying to think of it.  But I am too much agitated—­it is necessary to put a stop to it.  You understand?”

“Perfectly; but how can it concern me?”

“Concern you?  You are about to hear.  You are my cousin, are you not?”

“Truly, General, I have that honor.”

“But very distant, eh?  I have thirty-six cousins as near as you, and—­the devil!  To speak plainly, I owe you nothing.”

“And I have never demanded payment even of that, General.”

“Ah, I know that!  Well, you are my cousin, very far removed!  But you are more than that.  Your father saved my life in the Atlas.  He has related it all to you—­No?  Well, that does not astonish me; for he was no braggart, that father of yours; he was a man!  Had he not quitted the army, a brilliant career was before him.  People talk a great deal of Pelissier, of Canrobert, of MacMahon, and of others.  I say nothing against them; they are good men doubtless—­at least I hear so; but your father would have eclipsed them all had he taken the trouble.  But he didn’t take the trouble!

“Well, for the story:  We were crossing a gorge of the Atlas; we were in retreat; I had lost my command; I was following as a volunteer.  It is useless to weary you with details; we were in retreat; a shower of stones and bullets poured upon us, as if from the moon.  Our column was slightly disordered; I was in the rearguard—­whack! my horse was down, and I under him!

“We were in a narrow gorge with sloping sides some fifteen feet high; five dirty guerillas slid down the sides and fell upon me and on the beast—­forty devils!  I can see them now!  Just here the gorge took a sudden turn, so no one could see my trouble; or no one wished to see it, which comes to the same thing.