Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. II, 1866.djvu/105

Rh watch, and so on—though, you know, it was I who did him the service, and he felt that."

"You were at Vesoul together before being moved to Verdun?"

"Yes."

"What else do you know about Bycliffe?"

"O, nothing very particular," said Christian, pausing, and rapping his boot with his cane. "He'd been in the Hanoverian army—a high-spirited fellow, took nothing easily; not overstrong in health. He made a fool of himself with marrying at Vesoul; and there was the devil to pay with the girl's relations; and then, when the prisoners were ordered off, they had to part. Whether they ever got together again I don't know."

"Was the marriage all right, then?"

"O, all on the square—civil marriage, church—everything. Bycliffe was a fool—a good-natured, proud, headstrong fellow."

"How long did the marriage take place before you left Vesoul?"

"About three months. I was a witness to the marriage."

"And you know no more about the wife?"

"Not afterwards. I knew her very well before—pretty Annette—Annette Ledru was her name.