Maurice, always cheered and encouraged when he saw a prospect of amendment in himself, and equally disheartened when his good resolves failed him and he relapsed, generous and enthusiastic but without steadiness of purpose, a weathercock that shifted with every varying breath of impulse, now believed that experience had done its work and taught him the error of his ways. He was a small, light-complexioned man, with a high, well-developed forehead, small nose, and retreating chin, and a pair of attractive gray eyes in a face that indicated intelligence; there were times when his mind seemed to lack balance. 

 Weiss, on the eve of the commencement of hostilities, had found that there were family matters that made it necessary for him to visit Mülhausen, and had made a hurried trip to that city. That he had been able to employ the good offices of Colonel de Vineuil to afford him an opportunity of shaking hands with his brother-in-law was owing to the circumstance that that officer was own uncle to young Mme. Delaherche, a pretty young widow whom the cloth manufacturer had married the year previous, and whom Maurice and Henriette, thanks to their being neighbors, had known as a girl. In addition to the colonel, moreover, Maurice had discovered that the captain of his company, Beaudoin, was an acquaintance of Gilberte, Delaherche’s young wife; report even had it that she and the captain had been on terms of intimacy in the days when she was Mme. Maginot, living at Mézière, wife of M. Maginot, the timber inspector. 

 “Give Henriette a good kiss for me, Weiss,” said the young man, who loved his sister passionately. “Tell her that she shall have no reason to complain of me, that I wish her to be proud of her brother.” 

 Tears rose to his eyes at the remembrance of his misdeeds. The brother-in-law, who was also deeply affected, ended the painful scene by turning to Honoré Fouchard, the artilleryman. 

 “The first time I am anywhere in the neighborhood,” he said, “I will run up to Remilly and tell Uncle Fouchard that I saw you and that you are well.” 

 Uncle Fouchard, a peasant, who owned a bit of land and plied the trade of itinerant butcher, serving his customers from a cart, was a brother of Henriette’s and Maurice’s mother. He lived at Remilly, in a house perched upon a high hill, about four miles from Sedan. 

 “Good!” Honoré calmly answered; “the father don’t worry his head a great deal on my account, but go there all the same if you feel inclined.” 

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