Waterbury Democrat., 1901-05-23
UNDER TWO FLAGS
By "OUIDA."
S.-c+.c-.:sS:.ci-O.-CC-.-C:-C-.cso.o..

 which some pity and more honor for him were blended.
 "You told him your past. Will you confess 1t to meT
 'I cannot, madame"
 "And whyT"
 Because am dead, because in your presence 1t becomes more bitter to me to remember that ever lived"
 "You speak strangely. Cannot your life have resurrection"
 'sNever, madame. For a brief hour you have given it one-in dreams. It will have no other. As I am now so I desire to live and die."
 ''You voluntarily condemn yourself to thisr'
 'T have voluntarily chosen it. I am well sure that the silence entreat will be kept by you?"
 "Assuredly, unless by your wish it be broken. Yeti await my brothers arrival here. He is a soldier himself. I shall hope that he will persuade you to think differently of your future. At any rate both his and my own in- fuence will always be exerted for you, if you will avail yourself of it." "You do me much honor, madame. All will ever ask of you is to return those coins to my colonel and to forget that your gentleness has made me dis regard for one merciful half hour the sufferance on which alone trooper can present himself here"
 He swept the ground with his cap as though 1t were the plumed hat, of a marshal and backed slowly from her presence, as he had many a time long before backed out of a throneroom.
 As he went his eyes caught the ar mics of the ivory chessmen. They stood under the glass and had not been broken by her lapdog.
 hiladi, left alone there in her luxuri- ous morning room, sat awhile lost in thought. He attracted her; he inter ested her; he aroused her sympathy and her wonder as the men of her own world had failed to do-aroused them despite the pride which made her i'm patient of lending so much attention to a mere Chasseur d'Afrique. She discovered the ring of true gold in his words and the carriage of pure breed ing in his actions. He interested her more than it pleased her that he should. A man so utterly beneath her, doubtless brought into the grade to which he had fallen by every kind of error, of improvidence, of folly, of probably worse than follyI She laugh ed a little at herself as she stretched out her hand for new volume of French poems dedicated to her by their accomplished writer, who was a Pari- sian diplomatist.
 'sOne would imagine I was just out of a convent and weaving a marvellous romance from a atmystery because the first soldier notice in Algeria has 8 gentleman's voice and is i'll treated by bis officers she thought, with a smile "Such a man as that buried ina the ranks Of this brutanzed armyp she unused. What fatal chance could bring him here? Misfortune, not miscon- duct, surely. I wonder if Lyon could learn? He shall try"
 Your chasseur has the air of prince, my love-" said voice behind l her. S{,ss
 "Equivocal compliment A much better air than most princes" said Mime. Corona, glancing up, with slight shrug of her shoulders, as her guest and ltraveling companion, the Marquise de Renardiere, entered.
 "Indeed! saw him as he passed out, and he saluted me as if he had been a marshal Why did he come"
 yenetia Corona pointed to the napo- Icons and told the story rather listless- ly and briefly. " ss
 I
 "Ahls The man has been a gentle man, dare say. So many of them come to our army. remember Gener al .yilleheur's telling me-he command ed here awhile-that the ranks of the zephyrs and zouaves were full of well born men, utterly good for nothing, the handsomest scoundrels possible, who had every gift and every grace and yet come to no better end than a pistol shot in ditch or mortal thrust from Bedouin steel. dare say your corpo- ral is one of them."
 -'It may be so. But this person is certainly unlike a man to whom dis grace has ever attached. Through his skill at sculpture and my notice of 1t considerable indignity has been brought upon him, and a soldier can feel. it seems, ,thoughsit is very absurd that he should. That is all my concern with the matter, except that have to teach his commander not to play with my name in his barrack yard"