There is no person in the French army by the name of Vauvenarde.
I went straight to Lola Brandt with the hideous volume and the unwelcome news.

Together we searched the pages.
"He _must_ be here," she said, with feminine disregard of fact.
"Are you quite certain you have got the name right ?" I asked.
"Why, it is my own name!" "So it is," said I; "I was forgetting.

But how do you know he was in the army at all ?" He might have been an adventurer, a Captain of Kopenick of the day, who had poured a gallant but mendacious tale into her ears.
"I hardly ever saw him out of uniform.

He was quartered at Marseilles on special duty.

I knew some of his brother officers." "Then," said I, "there are only two alternatives.