"And the Lichtenberg affair—the cause of all this?" said Perichaud.
"Ah, that beats the Moscow campaign," said Joubert, "for blackness and treachery. Mark you: this is between ourselves. You will never breathe a word of it to anyone?"
"No, no; not a word!"
"Well, the Baron Carl von Lichtenberg was mad."
"Mad?"
"Mad. What else can you call a man who brings his little daughter up as a boy?"
"A boy?"
"It is true. He fancied she was some old dead-and-gone Lichtenberg returned, and that she was doomed to be killed by the child in there with the broken leg, whom he thought was some old dead-and-gone Saluce returned. Then— Listen to me; and I trust monsieur's honour never to let these words go further. He, or at least one of his damned jägers, tried to smother the child. The night before, they tried to stab him—as he lay asleep in bed—with my couteau de chasse, and would have done it only the Blessed Virgin interposed."
"Great Heaven!" said the old doctor.
"Oh, yes," said Joubert; "that's the story. I saw it all with my own eyes, or I wouldn't believe my own tongue with my own ears. And now monsieur, what do you think of him?"