'"Whom you love," she said, in a cutting voice—"there, there, take your mistress to your breast," and she cast an old cigar-case at my feet as she shut the door in my face.
'I never saw Caroline again. I returned to my regiment, said nothing about the fatal duel—nay, even wore mourning for my adversary, who was not very much regretted. He left after him one pretty boy, a love-child; I was not able to adopt him myself, but I watched over him and got him admitted into the regiment as enfant de troupe—a brave, truthful, but hot-headed, passionate boy. He died a soldier's death at the taking of the Smala of Abd-el-Kader, under Lamoricière. His daughter has his candour and generosity, without his ebullitions of temper. She's somewhat giddy, perhaps, but very good-natured. Don't you think so?'
'How should I know, captain?' said O'Hara, who had been a patient listener to this moving story.
'Ah, me! How an old man's brain wanders! Do you know,' he continued, after a little hesitation, 'I feel the better for having opened my bosom to you, my young friend, and I don't care for making half-confidences. I may trust your discretion, I think,' and he smiled amiably. 'Berthe, my Song-bird, the sunbeam in my house, is the daughter of the boy, the grand-daughter of him I had the misfortune to slay at Metz. No, not to slay,' he added quickly, correcting himself, 'I did not slay him; he rushed on his own death.'
'Did Caroline's mother ever divulge the secret of your confession?' inquired O'Hara.
'Never, oh no! She was one of the old nobility, the mirror of honour. She would not look upon any casualty in an affair of the kind other than as a matter of ordinary course, even of professional necessity, in the life of a soldier.'
'And you never saw Caroline? Did she learn anything about it, do you think?'
Captain Chauvin sighed.
'Sometimes I think she did, but I am sure she forgave me if she heard all as it happened. She was too good in herself to think evil of anyone. Ah! my dear sir, she was a woman. The sex, the sex! we, soldiers and men of feeling, ought to have no commerce with it, but be let walk our ways straightly.'
O'Hara was fiddling with a certain parcel which he had stolen from his bosom.