"Ah, here is our captive hero!" observed the visitor as he shook hands. "You do not look any the worse for your imprisonment, so I hope that it was not rigorous. More boring, probably—eh, young man?"
"I do not fancy that Laurent found it exactly boring, General," said his mother, smiling. "He had a wounded companion whom he helped to nurse; that gave him employment. He has the happiness of having contributed to the Vicomte de la Rocheterie's restoration to health—L'Oiseleur, you know."
The old soldier stiffened curiously. "Ah—really!" he remarked, and looked hard at Laurent for a moment. Then he changed the subject.
But as he was taking his leave he held Mme de Courtomer's hand and said gravely, "My dear lady, if a very old friend may venture on a word of advice, I think it would be as well if you kept silence as to your son's charity in imprisonment."
"Mon Dieu, why?" exclaimed the Comtesse in astonishment.
"Because," said the General still more gravely, "I grieve to say that it was mistaken charity."
"—Monsieur——" began Laurent hotly, but the guest went on, unheeding.
"—Since it was bestowed on an unworthy object. And, in point of fact, it was no charity at all. It would have been a thousand times better to have allowed that—that incredibly treacherous young man to die. But your son, no doubt, did not know what he was doing."
"I did know!" said Laurent, white, his head flung back. "I knew all the time of the abominable slander on a man as honourable as you or I! . . . My God! my God! and now it is going about Paris!"
The distinguished soldier looked at him and was perhaps a little moved by his distress. But he spoke no less sternly, "Can you wonder, Monsieur de Courtomer? What steps have been taken to check it? An innocent man must have cleared himself by now of a charge so infamous.—La Rocheterie betrayed . . . sold . . . his own men to the enemy," he explained to his hostess. "You did not know, of course. I am sorry to have shocked you, but you see why I counsel you, Madame, in your son's best interests, to be discreet." He looked once more towards that son, who had turned his back and laid his head against the mantelshelf—and he forbore to utter a farewell which would obviously have gone unreciprocated.