Kitabı oku: «Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1», sayfa 22

“And that?”

“You should take a solemn oath – I ‘d make it a solemn one, I promise you – never to question anything I decided in your behalf, but obey me to the letter in whatever I ordered. Three months of that servitude, and you ‘d come out what I ‘ve promised you.”

“I ‘ll swear it this moment,” cried Beecher.

“Will you?” asked Davis, eagerly.

“In the most solemn and formal manner you can dictate on oath to me. I ‘ll take it now, only premising you ‘ll not ask me anything against the laws.”

“Nothing like hanging, nor even transportation,” said Grog, laughing, while Beecher’s face grew crimson, and then pale. “No, – no; all I ‘ll ask is easily done, and not within a thousand miles of a misdemeanor. But you shall Just think it over quietly. I don’t want a ‘catch match.’ You shall have time to reconsider what I have said, and when we meet at Brussels you can tell me your mind.”

“Agreed; only I hold you to your bargain, remember, if I don’t change.”

“I’ll stand to what I’ve said,” said Davis. “Now, remember, the Hotel Tirlemont; and so, good-bye, for I must pack up.”

When the door closed after him, Annesley Beecher walked the room, discussing with himself the meaning of Davis’s late words. Well did he know that to restore himself to rank and credit and fair fame was a labor of no common difficulty. How was he ever to get back to that station, forfeited by so many derelictions! Davis might, it is true, get his bills discounted, – might hit upon fifty clever expedients for raising the wind, – might satisfy this one, compromise with that; he might even manage so cleverly that racecourses and betting-rooms would be once more open to him. But what did – what could Grog know of that higher world where once he had moved, and to which, by his misdeeds, he had forfeited all claim to return? Why, Davis did n’t even know the names of those men whose slightest words are verdicts upon character. All England was not Ascot, and Grog only recognized a world peopled with gentlemen riders and jocks, and a landscape dotted with flagstaffs, and closed in with a stand-house.

“No, no,” said he to himself; “that’s a flight above you, Master Davis. It ‘s not to be thought of.”

CHAPTER XXX. THE OPERA

A dingy old den enough is the Hôtel Tirlemont, with its low-arched porte-cochere, and its narrow windows, small-paned and iron-barred. It rather resembles one of those antiquated hostels you see in the background of an Ostade or a Teniers than the smart edifice which we nowadays look for in an hotel. Such was certainly the opinion of Annesley Beecher as he arrived there on the evening after that parting with Davis we have just spoken of. Twice did he ask the guide who accompanied him if this was really the Tirlemont, and if there were not some other hotel of the same name; and while he half hesitated whether he should enter, a waiter respectfully stepped forward to ask if he were the gentleman whose apartment had been ordered by Captain Davis, – a demand to which, with a sullen assent, he yielded, and slowly mounted the stairs.

“Is the Captain at home?” asked he.

“No, sir; he went off to the railway station to meet you. Mademoiselle, however, is upstairs.”

“Mademoiselle!” cried Beecher, stopping, and opening wide his eyes in astonishment. “This is something new,” muttered he. “When did she come?”

“Last night, sir, after dinner.”

“Where from?”

“From a Pensionnat outside the Porte de Scharbeck, I think, sir; at least, her maid described it as in that direction.”

“And what is she called, – Mademoiselle Violette, or Virginie, or Ida, or what is it, eh?” asked he, jocularly.

“Mademoiselle, sir, – only Mademoiselle, – the Captain’s daughter!”

“His daughter!” repeated he, in increased wonderment, to himself. “Can this be possible?”

“There is no doubt of it, sir. The lady of the Pensionnat brought her here last night in her own carriage, and I heard her, as she entered the salon, say, ‘Now, Mademoiselle, that I have placed you in the hands of your father – ’ and then the door closed.”

“I never knew he had a daughter,” muttered Beecher to himself. “Which is my room?”

“We have prepared this one for you, but to-morrow you shall have a more comfortable one, with a look-out over the lower town.”

“Put me somewhere where I sha’n’t hear that confounded piano, I beg of you. Who is it rattles away that fashion?”

“Mademoiselle, sir.”

“To be sure, – I ought to have guessed it; and sings too, I’ll be bound?”

“Like Grisi, sir,” responded the waiter, enthusiastically; for the Tirlemont, being frequented by the artistic class, had given him great opportunity for forming his taste.

Just at this moment a rich, full voice swelled forth in one of the popular airs of Verdi, but with a degree of ease and freedom that showed the singer soared very far indeed above the pretensions of mere amateurship.

“Wasn’t I right, sir?” asked the waiter, triumphantly. “You’ll not hear anything better at the Grand Opera.”

“Send me up some hot water, and open that portmanteau,” said Beecher, while he walked on towards the door of the salon. He hesitated for a second or two about then presenting himself; but as he thought of Grog Davis, and what Grog Davis’s daughter must be like, he turned the handle and entered.

A lady rose from the piano as the door opened, and even in the half-darkened room Beecher could perceive that she was graceful, and with an elegance in her gesture for which he was in no wise prepared.

“Have I the honor to address Miss Davis?”

“You are Mr. Annesley Beecher, the gentleman my papa has been expecting,” said she, with an easy smile. “He has just gone off to meet you.”

Nothing could be more commonplace than these words, but they were uttered in a way that at once declared the breeding of the speaker. She spoke to a friend of her father, and there was a tone of one who felt that even in a first meeting a certain amount of intimacy might subsist between them.

“It’s very strange,” said Beecher, “but your father and I have been friends this many a year – close friends too – and I never as much as suspected he had a daughter. What a shame of him not to have given me the pleasure of knowing you before!”

“It was a pleasure he was chary enough of to himself,” said she, laughing. “I have been at school nearly four years, and have only seen him once, and then for a few hours.”

“Yes – but really,” stammered out Beecher, “fascinations – charms such as – ”

“Pray, sir, don’t distress yourself about turning a compliment. I’m quite sure I’m very attractive, but I don’t in the least want to be told so. You see,” she added, after a pause, “I ‘m presuming upon what papa has told me of your old friendship to be very frank with you.”

“I am enchanted at it,” cried Beecher. “Egad! if you. ‘cut out all the work,’ though, I ‘ll scarcely be able to follow you.”

“Ah! so here you are before me,” cried Davis, entering and shaking his hand cordially. “You had just driven off when I reached the station. All right, I hope?”

“All right, thank you.”

“You ‘ve made Lizzy’s acquaintance, I see, so I need n’t introduce you. She knows you this many a day.”

“But why have I not had the happiness of knowing her?” asked Beecher.

“How ‘s Klepper?” asked Grog, abruptly. “The swelling gone out of the hocks yet?”

“Yes; he’s clean as a whistle.”

“The wind-gall, too, – has that gone?”

“Going rapidly; a few days’ walking exercise will make him perfect.”

“No news of Spicer and his German friend, – though I expected to have had a telegraph all day yesterday. But come, these are not interesting matters for Lizzy, – we ‘ll have up dinner, and see about a box for the opera.”

“A very gallant thought, papa, which I accept with pleasure.”

“I must dress, I suppose,” said Beecher, half asking; for even yet he could not satisfy his mind what amount of observance was due to the daughter of Grog Davis.

“I conclude you must,” said she, smiling; “and I too must make a suitable toilette;” and, with a slight bow and a little smile, she swept past them out of the room.

“How close you have been, old fellow, – close as wax, – about this,” said Beecher; “and hang me, if she mightn’t be daughter to the proudest Duke in England!”

“So she might,” said Grog; “and it was to make her so, I have consented to this life of separation. What respect and deference would the fellows show my daughter when I wasn’t by? How much delicacy would she meet with when the fear of an ounce ball wasn’t over them? And was I going to bring her up in such a set as you and I live with? Was a young creature like that to begin the world without seeing one man that wasn’t a leg, or one woman that wasn’t worse? Was it by lessons of robbery and cheating her mind was to be stored? And was she to start in life by thinking that a hell was high society? Look at her now,” said he, sternly, “and say if I was in Norfolk Island to-morrow, where ‘s the fellow that would have the pluck to insult her? It is true she doesn’t know me as you and the others know me; but the man that would let her into that secret would never tell her another.” There was a terrible fierceness in his eye as he spoke, and the words came from him with a hissing sound like the venomous threatenings of a serpent. “She knows nothing of my life nor my ways. Except your own name, she never heard me mention one of the fellows we live with. She knows you to be the brother of Lord Viscount Lack-ington, and that you are the Honorable Annesley Beecher, that’s all she knows of you; ain’t that little enough?”

Beecher tried to laugh easily at this speech; but it was only a very poor and faint attempt, after all.

“She thinks me a man of fortune, and you an unblemished gentleman; and if that be not innocence, I ‘d like to know what is! Of where, how, and with whom we pick up our living, she knows as much as we do about the Bench of Bishops.”

“I must confess I don’t think the knowledge would improve her!” said Beecher, with a laugh.

A fierce and savage glance from Davis, however, very quickly arrested his jocularity; and Beecher, in a graver tone, resumed: “It was a deuced fine thing of you, Grog, to do this. There ‘s not another fellow living would have bad the head to think of it But now that she has come home to you, how do you mean to carry on the campaign? A girl like that can’t live secluded from the world, – she must go out into society? Have you thought of that?”

“I have thought of it,” rejoined Davis, bluntly, but in a tone that by no means invited further inquiry.

“Her style and her manner fit her for the best set anywhere – ”

“That’s where I intend her to be,” broke in Davis.

“I need scarcely tell as clever a fellow as you,” said Beecher, mildly, “that there’s nothing so difficult as to find footing among these people. Great wealth may obtain it, or great patronage. There are women in London who can do that sort of thing; there are just two or three such, and you may imagine how difficult it is to secure their favor.”

“They ‘re all cracked teacups, those women you speak of; one has only to know where the flaw is, and see how easily managed they are!”

Beecher smiled at this remark; he chuckled to himself, too, to see that for once the wily Grog Davis had gone out of his depth, and adventured to discuss people and habits of which he knew nothing; but, unwilling to prolong a controversy so delicate, he hurried away to his room to dress. Davis, too, retired on a similar errand, and a student of life might have been amused to have taken a peep into the two dressing-rooms. As for Beecher, it was but the work of a few minutes to array himself in dinner costume. It was a routine task that he performed without a thought on its details. All was ready at his hand; and even to the immaculate tie, which seemed the work of patience and skill, he despatched the whole performance in less than a quarter of an hour. Not so Davis: he ransacked drawers and portmanteaus; covered the bed, the chairs, and the table with garments; tried on and took off again; endeavored to make colors harmonize, or hit upon happy contrasts. He was bent on appearing a “swell;” and, unquestionably, when he did issue forth, with a canary-colored vest, and a green coat with gilt buttons, his breast a galaxy of studs and festooned chains, it would have been unfair to say he had not succeeded.

Beecher had but time to compliment him on his “get up,” when Miss Davis entered. Though her dress was simply the quiet costume of a young unmarried girl, there was in her carriage and bearing, as she came in, all the graceful ease of the best society; and lighted up by the lamps of the apartment, Beecher saw, to his astonishment, the most beautiful girl he had ever beheld. It was not alone the faultless delicacy of her face, but there was that mingled gentleness and pride, that strange blending of softness and seriousness, which sit so well on the high-born, giving a significance to every gesture or word of those whose every movement is so measured, and every syllable so carefully uttered. “Why was n’t she a countess in her own right?” thought he; “that girl might have all London at her feet.”

The dinner went on very pleasantly. Davis, too much occupied in listening to his daughter or watching the astonishment of Beecher, scarcely ever spoke; but the others chatted away about whatever’ came uppermost in a light and careless tone that delighted him.

Beecher was not sorry at the opportunity of a little dis-play. He was glad to show Davis that in the great world of society he could play no insignificant part; and so he put forth all his little talents as a talker, with choice anecdotes of “smart people,” and the sayings and doings of a set which, to Grog, were as much myths as the inscriptions on an Assyrian monument. Lizzy Davis evidently took interest in his account of London and its life. She liked, too, to hear about the families of her schoolfellows, some of whom bore “cognate” names, and she listened with actual eagerness to descriptions of the gorgeous splendor and display of a town “season.”

“And I am to see all these fine things, and know all these fine people, papa?” asked she.

“Yes, I suppose so, – one of these days, at least,” muttered Grog, not caring to meet Beecher’s eye.

“I don’t think you care for this kind of life so much as Mr. Beecher, pa. Is their frivolity too great for your philosophy?”

“It ain’t that!” muttered Grog, growing confused.

“Then do tell me, now, something of the sort of people you are fond of; the chances are that I shall like them just as well as the others.”

Beecher and Davis exchanged glances of most intense significance; and were it not from downright fear, Beecher would have burst out laughing.

“Then I will ask Mr. Beecher,” said she, gayly. “You ‘ll not be so churlish as papa, I ‘m certain. You ‘ll tell me what his world is like?”

“Well, it’s a very smart world too,” said Beecher, slyly enjoying the malicious moment of worrying Grog with impunity. “Not so many pretty women in it, perhaps, but plenty of movement, plenty of fun, – eh, Davis? Are you fond of horses, Miss Davis?”

“Passionately; and I flatter myself I can ride too. By the way, is it true, papa, you have brought a horse from England for me?”

“Who could have told you that?” said Davis, almost sternly.

“My maid heard it from a groom that has just arrived, but with such secrecy that I suppose I have destroyed all the pleasure of the surprise you intended me; never mind, dearest pa, I am just as grateful – ”

“Grateful for nothing,” broke in Davis. “The groom is a prating rascal, and your maid ought to mind her own affairs.” Then reddening to his temples with shame at his ill-temper, he added, “There is a horse, to be sure, but he ain’t much of a lady’s palfrey.”

“What would you say to her riding Klepper in the Allée Verte, – it might be a rare stroke?” asked Beecher, in a whisper to Davis.

“Do you think that she is to be brought into our knaveries? Is that all you have learned from what I ‘ve been saying to you?” whispered Davis, with a look of such savage ferocity that Beecher grew sick at heart with terror.

“I ‘m sorry to break in upon such confidential converse,” said she, laughingly, “but pray remember we are losing the first scene of the opera.”

“I ‘m at your orders,” said Beecher, as, with his accustomed easy gallantry, he stepped forward to offer her his arm.

The opera was a favorite one, and the house was crowded in every part. As in all cities of a certain rank, the occupants of the boxes, with a few rare exceptions, were the same well-known people who, night after night, follow along the worn track of pleasure. To them the stage is but a secondary object, to which attention only wanders at intervals. The house itself, the brilliant blaze of beauty, the splendor of diamonds, the display of dress, and, more than all these, the subtle by-play of intrigue, detectable only by eyes deep-skilled and trained, – these form the main attractions of a scene wherein our modern civilization is more strikingly exhibited than in any other situation.

Scarcely had Lizzy Davis taken her seat than a low murmur of wondering admiration ran through the whole house, and, in the freedom which our present-day habits license, every opera-glass was turned towards her. Totally unconscious of the admiration she was exciting, her glances ranged freely over the theatre in every part, and her eyes were directed from object to object in amazement at the gorgeousness of the scene around her. Seated far back in the box, entirely screened from view, her father, too, perceived nothing of that strange manifestation wherein a sort of homage is blended with a degree of impertinence, but watched the stage with intense eagerness. Very different from the feelings of either father or daughter were the feelings of Annesley Beecher. He knew well the opera and its habits, and as thoroughly saw that it is to the world of fashion what Tattersall’s or the turf is to the world of sport, – the great ring where every match is booked, every engagement registered, and every new aspirant for success canvassed and discussed. There was not a glance turned towards the unconscious girl at his side but he could read its secret import. How often had it been his own lot to stare up from his stall at some fair face, unknown to that little world which arrogates to itself all knowledge, and mingle his criticism with all the impertinences fashion loves to indulge in! The steady stare of some, the unwilling admiration of others, the ironical gaze of more, were all easy of interpretation by him, and for the very first time in his life he became aware of the fact that it was possible to be unjust with regard to the unknown.

As the piece proceeded, and her interest in the play increased, a slightly heightened color and an expression of half eagerness gave her beauty all that it had wanted before of animation, and there was now an expression of such captivation on her face that, carried away by that mysterious sentiment which sways masses, sending its secret spell from heart to heart, the whole audience turned from the scene to watch its varying effects upon that beautiful countenance. The opera was “Rigoletto,” and she continued to translate to her father the touching story of that sad old man, who, lost to every sentiment of honor, still cherished in his heart of hearts his daughter’s love. The terrible contrast between his mockery of the world and his affection for his home, the bitter consciousness of how he treated others, conjuring up the terrors of what yet might be his own fate, came to him in her words, as the stage revealed their action, and gradually he leaned over in his eagerness till his head projected outside the box.

“There – was n’t I right about her?” said a voice from one of the stalls beneath. “That’s Grog Davis. I know the fellow well.”

“I ‘ve won my wager,” said another. “There ‘s old Grog leaning over her shoulder, and there can’t be much doubt about her now.”

“Annesley Beecher at one side, and Grog Davis at the other,” said a third, make the case very easy reading. “I ‘ll go round and get presented to her.”

“Let us leave this, Davis,” whispered Beecher, while he trembled from head to foot, – “let us leave this at once. Come down to the crush-room, and I ‘ll find a carriage.”

“Why so – what do you mean?” said Davis; and as suddenly he followed Beecher’s glance towards the pit, whence every eye was turned towards them.

That glance was not to be mistaken. It was the steady and insolent stare the world bestows upon those who have neither champions nor defenders; and Davis returned the gaze with a defiance as insulting.

“For any sake, Davis, let us get away,” whispered Beecher again. “Only think of her, if there should be any exposure!”

“Exposure! – how should there? Who ‘d dare – ”

Before he could finish, the curtain at the back of the box was rudely drawn aside, and a tall, handsome man, with a certain swaggering ease of manner that seemed to assert his right to be there if he pleased, came forward, saying, —

“How goes it, Davis? I just caught a glimpse of that charming – ”

“A word with you, Captain Hamilton,” said Davis, between his teeth, as he pushed the other towards the door.

“As many as you like, old fellow, by and by. For the present, I mean to establish myself here.”

“That you sha’n’t, by Heaven!” cried Davis, as he placed himself in front of him. “Leave this, sir, at once.”

“Why, the fellow is deranged,” said Hamilton, laughing; “or is it jealousy, old boy?”

With a violent push Davis drove him backwards, and ere he could recover, following up the impulse, he thrust him outside the box, hurriedly passing outside, and shutting the door after him.

So rapidly and so secretly had all this occurred, that Lizzy saw nothing of it, all her attention being eagerly fixed on the stage. Not so Beecher. He had marked it all, and now sat listening in terror to the words of high altercation in the lobby. From sounds that boded like insult and outrage, the noise gradually decreased to more measured tones; then came a few words in whisper, and Davis, softly drawing the curtain, stepped gently to his chair at his daughter’s back. A hasty sign to Beecher gave him to understand that all was settled quietly, and the incident was over.

“You ‘ll not think me very churlish if I rob you of one act of the opera, Lizzy?” said Davis, as the curtain fell; “but I have a racking headache, which all this light and heat are only increasing.”

“Let us go at once, dearest papa,” said she, rising. “You should have told me of this before. There, Mr. Beecher, you needn’t leave this – ”

“She’s quite right,” said Davis; “you must remain.”

And the words were uttered with a certain significance that Beecher well understood as a command.

It was past midnight when Annesley Beecher returned to the hotel, and both Davis and his daughter had already gone to their rooms.

“Did your master leave any message for me?” said he to the groom, who acted as Davis’s valet.

“No, sir, not a word.”

“Do you know, would he see me? Could you ask him?” said he.

The man disappeared for a few minutes, and then coming back, said, “Mr. Davis is fast asleep, sir, and I dare not disturb him.”

“Of course not,” said Beecher, and turned away.

“How that fellow can go to bed and sleep, after such a business as that!” muttered Beecher, as he drew his chair towards the fire, and sat ruminating over the late incident. It was in a spirit of triumphant satisfaction that he called to mind the one solitary point in which he was the superior of Davis, – class and condition, – and he revelled in the thought that men like Grog make nothing but blunders when they attempt the habits of those above them. “With all his shrewdness,” said he to himself, half aloud, “he could not perceive that he has been trying an impossibility. She is beyond them all in beauty, her manners are perfect, her breeding unexceptionable; and yet, there she is, Grog Davis’s daughter! Ay, Grog, my boy, you ‘ll see it one of these days. It ‘s all to no use. Enter her for what stakes you like, she ‘ll be always disqualified. There ‘s only one thing carries these attempts through, – if you could give her a pot of money. Yes, Master Davis, there are fellows – and with good blood in their veins – that, for fifty or sixty thousand pounds, would marry even your daughter.” With this last remark he finished all his reflections, and proceeded to prepare for bed.

Sleep, however, would not come; he was restless and uneasy; the incident in the theatre might get abroad, and his own name be mentioned; or it might be that Hamilton, knowing well who and what Davis was, would look to him, Beecher, for satisfaction. There was another pleasant eventuality, – to be drawn into a quarrel and shot for Grog Davis’s daughter! To be the travelling-companion of such a man was bad enough; to risk being seen with him on railroads and steamboats was surely sufficient; but to be paraded in places of public amusement, to be dragged before the well-dressed world, not as his chance associate, but as a member of his domestic circle, chaperoning his daughter to the opera, was downright intolerable! And thus was it that this man, who had been dunned and insulted by creditors, hunted from place to place by sheriff’s officers, browbeaten by bankruptcy practitioners, stigmatized by the press, haunted all the while by a conscience that whispered there was even worse hanging over him, yet did he feel more real terror from the thought of how he would be regarded by his own “order” for this unseemly intimacy, than shame for all his deeper and graver transgressions.

“No,” said he, at last, springing from his bed, and lighting his candle, “I ‘ll be off. I ‘ll cut my lucky, Master Grog; and here goes to write you half a dozen lines to break the fact to you. I ‘ll call it a sudden thought – a notion – that I ought to see Lackington at once. I ‘ll say that I could n’t think of subjecting Miss Davis to the inconvenience of that rapid mode of travelling I feel to be so imminently necessary. I ‘ll tell him that as I left the theatre, I saw one of Fordyce’s clerks, that the fellow knew me and grinned, and that I know I shall be arrested if I stay here. I ‘ll hint that Hamilton, who is highly connected, will have the English Legation at us all. Confound it, he ‘ll believe none of these. I ‘ll just say” – Here he took his pen and wrote, —

“Dear D., – After we parted last night, a sudden caprice seized me that I ‘d start off at once for Italy. Had you been alone, old fellow, I should never have thought of it;

but seeing that I left you in such charming company, with one whose – [‘No, that won’t do – I must strike out that;

and so he murmured over the lines ending in ‘company.’ and then went on.] – I have no misgivings about being either missed or wanted. – [‘Better, perhaps, missed or regretted.‘] We have been too long friends to – [‘No, we are too old pals, that’s better – he does n’t care much for friendship’] – too old pals to make me suspect you will be displeased with this – this unforeseen – [‘That’s a capital word! – unforeseen what? It’s always calamity comes after unforeseen; but I can’t call it calamity’] —

unforeseen ‘bolt over the ropes,’ and believe me as ever, or believe me ‘close as wax,’

“Yours, A. B.”

“A regular diplomatic touch, I call that note,” said he, as he reread it to himself with much complacency. “Lack-ington thinks me a ‘flat;’ then let any one read that, and say if the fellow that wrote it is a fool.” And now he sealed and directed his epistle, having very nearly addressed it to Grog, instead of to Captain Davis. “His temper won’t be angelic when he gets it,” muttered he, “but I’ll be close to Liege by that time.” And with this very reassuring reflection he jumped into bed again, determining to remain awake till daybreak.

Wearied out at last with watching, Annesley Beecher fell off asleep, and so soundly, too, that it was not till twice spoken to he could arouse and awaken.

“Eh, what is it, Rivers?” cried he, as he saw the trim training-groom at his side. “Anything wrong with the horse?”

“No, sir, nothing; he’s all right, anyhow.”

“What is it, then; any one from town looking for us?”

“No, sir, nobody whatever. It’s the Captain himself – ”

“What of him? Is he ill?”

“Sound as a roach, sir; he’s many a mile off by this. Says he to me, ‘Rivers,’ says he, ‘when you gets back to the Tirlemont, give this note to Mr. Beecher; he ‘ll tell you afterwards what’s to be done. Only,’ says he, ‘don’t forget to rub a little of the white oils on that near hock; very weak,’ says he; ‘be sure it’s very weak, so as not to blister him.’ Ain’t he a wonderful man, sir, to be thinking o’ that at such a moment?”

“Draw the curtain, there, – let me have more light,” cried Beecher, eagerly, as he opened the small and crumpled piece of paper. The contents were in pencil, and very brief, —

“I ‘m off through the Ardennes towards Treves; come up to Aix with my daughter, and wait there till you hear from me. There ‘s a vacant ‘troop’ in the Horse Guards Blue this morning. Rivers can tell you all. – Yours, C. D.”

“What has happened, Rivers?” cried he, in intense anxiety. “Tell me at once.”

“Sir, it don’t take long to tell. It did n’t take very long to do. It was three, or maybe half-past, this morning, the Captain comes to my room, and says, ‘Rivers, get up; be lively,’ says he, ‘dress yourself, and go over to Jonesse, that fellow as has the shooting-gallery, give him this note; he ‘ll just read it, and answer it at once; then run over to Burton’s and order a coupé, with two smart horses, to be here at five; after that come back quickly, for I want a few things packed up.’ He made a sign to me that all was to be ‘dark,’ and so away I went, and before three quarters of an hour was back here again. At five to the minute the carriage came to the corner of the park, and we stepped out quietly; and when we reached it, there was Jonesse inside, with a tidy little box on his knee. ‘Oh, is that it?’ said I, for I knowed what that box meant, – ‘is that it?’