"Ah, mademoiselle!"
"You are Carbourd?"
"As you see, mademoiselle."
"You escaped safely then from the rifle-shot? Where is the soldier?"
"He fell into the river. He was drowned."
"You are telling me truth?"
"Yes, he stumbled in and sank—on my soul!"
"You did not try to save him?"
"He lied and got me six months in irons once; he called down on my back one hundred and fifty lashes, a year ago; he had me kept on bread and water, and degraded to the fourth class, where I could never hear from my wife and children—never write to them. I lost one eye in the quarries because he made me stand too near a lighted fuse—"
"Poor man, poor man!" she said. "You found the food I left here?"