Mr. Heywood's history may be told in a few words. He was the son of an
officer who had served in one of the American partizan corps, during the
Revolution, and had been killed at the attack made by General Green upon
the stronghold of Ninety-Six, in the South. At that time he was a mere
youth, and found himself a few years after, and at the age of eighteen,
without fortune, and wholly dependent upon his own resources. The war
being soon ended, his naturally enterprising disposition, added to great
physical strength, induced him to unite himself with one of the many
bands of adventurers that poured into the then, wilds of Kentucky,
where, within five years, and by dint of mere exertion and industry,
he amassed money enough to enable him to repair to Charleston, in South
Carolina, and espouse a lady of considerable landed property, with
whom he had formed a partial engagement, prior to his entering on that
adventurous life. The only fruit of this union was a daughter, and here,
as far as fortune was concerned, they might have enjoyed every comfort
in life, for Mrs. Heywood's property was principally situated in the
neighborhood, but her husband was of too restless a nature to content
himself with a sedentary life. He had at the outset embarked in
commerce--the experience of a few years, however, convincing him that
he was quite unsuited to such pursuits, he had the good sense to
abandon them before his affairs could be involved. He next attempted the
cultivation of the estate, but this failing to afford him the excitement
he craved, he suddenly took leave of his family, and placing every thing
under the control of a manager, once more obeyed the strong impulse,
which urged him again to Kentucky. Here, following as a passion the
occupation of his earlier years, he passed several seasons, scarcely
communicating during that period, with his amiable and gentle wife, for
whom, however, as well as for his daughter--now fifteen years of age,
and growing rapidly into womanhood--he was by no means wanting in
affection. Nor was his return home THEN purely a matter of choice.
Although neither quarrelsome nor dissipated in his habits, he had had
the misfortune to kill, in a duel, a young lawyer of good family who had
accompanied him to Kentucky, and had consequently fled. Great exertions
were made by the relatives of the deceased to have him arrested on the
plea that the duel, the result of a tavern dispute, had been unfair
on the part of the survivor. As there was some slight ground for this
charge, the fact of Mr. Heywood's flight afforded increased presumption
of his guilt, and such was the publicity given to the matter by his
enemies, that the rumor soon reached Charleston, and finally, the ears
of his family.
Revealing, in this extremity, his true position to his wife, Mr. Heywood
declared it to be his intention either to cross the sea, or to
bury himself forever in the remotest civilized portion of their own
continent, leaving her however, to the undisturbed possession of the
property she had brought him, which would of course descend to their
child.
But Mrs. Heywood would not listen to the proposal. Although she had much
to complain of, and to pain her, all recollection of the past faded from
her memory, when she beheld her husband in a position of danger, and
even in some degree of humiliation, for she was not ignorant that even
in the eyes of people not over scrupulous, ineffaceable infamy attaches
to the man, who, in a duel, aims with unfair deliberation at the life
of his opponent; and anxious to satisfy herself that such a stain rested
not on the father of her child, she conjured him to tell her if such
really was the case. He solemnly denied the fact, although he admitted
there were certain appearances against him, which, slight as they were,
his enemies had sought to deepen into proofs--and in the difficulty of
disproving these lay his chief embarrassment.
The tone--the manner--the whole demeanor of Mr. Heywood carried
conviction with his denial, and his wife at once expressed her
determination to renounce for his sake, all those local ties and
associations by which she had been surrounded from childhood, and follow
his fortunes, whithersoever they might lead. This, she persisted, she
was the more ready and willing to do, because her daughter's education
having been some months completed, under the best masters, there was
now no anxiety on her account, other than what might arise from her own
sense of the contemplated change.
Maria Heywood was accordingly summoned to the consultation--made
acquainted with her father's position, and the necessity for his instant
departure from that section of the country--and finally told that with
her it rested to decide, not only whether he should go alone, but if
they accompanied him, whether it should be to Europe, or to the Far
West.
“Rest with me to decide!” exclaimed the warm-hearted girl as she threw
herself into her mother's arms. “Oh, how good of you both thus to
consult me, whose duty it is to obey. But do not think that it is any
privation for me to leave this. I cannot claim the poor merit of the
sacrifice. I have no enjoyment in cities. Give me the solitude of
nature, books, and music, and I will live in a wigwam without regret.”
“Dear enthusiast,” said Mrs. Heywood, pressing her fondly to her heart;
“I knew well in what spirit would be your answer. You decide then for
the Far West?”
“Oh, yes, dear mamma! the Far West for me--no Europe. Give me the tall,
dense forests of our own noble land! I desire no other home--long have I
pictured to myself the vast lakes--the trackless woods and the boundless
prairies of that region of which I have read so much, and now,” she
concluded, with exaltation, “my fondest wishes will be realized, and
I shall pass my life in the midst of them. But, dear papa, to what
particular spot do we go?”
“To Chicago, my noble girl! It is the remotest of our Western
possessions, and quite a new country. There I may hope to pass unheeded,
but how will you, dear Maria, endure being buried alive there, when so
many advantages await you here?”
“Only figuratively, papa,” she replied with a pensive smile stealing
over her fine intellectual features. “Have no fear for me on that score,
for depend upon it, with so much natural beauty to interest, it will
be my own fault, if I suffer myself to be buried alive. What think you,
dear mamma?”
“I think with you, my child,” replied Mrs. Heywood, looking approvingly
at her daughter, “that it is our duty, as it assuredly will be our
pleasure to accompany your father wherever he may go.”
It was now arranged that Mr. Heywood, furnished with a considerable sum
of money in gold, should set out alone on the following night for
their new destination, and make the necessary preparations for their
reception, while his wife, through her agent, should endeavor to dispose
of the estate. As it would require some time for this, and as the
arrangements at Chicago could not well be completed within several
months, it was settled that they should meet at Albany, early in the
following autumn, where they should proceed to take possession of their
new abode. For his better security and freedom from interruption, Mr.
Heywood, while travelling, was to assume a feigned name, but his own was
to be resumed immediately after his arrival at Chicago, for neither he
nor his family could for a moment think of increasing the suspicion of
guilt, by continuing a name that was not their own; and, finally, as a
last measure of precaution, the free servants of the establishment, had,
with the exception of Catharine, whom they were to take with them, been
discharged, while a purchaser having fortunately been found, the slaves,
with the estate, were handed over to a new master, proverbial for his
kindness to that usually oppressed race. By these means they found
themselves provided with funds more than adequate to all their future
wants, the great bulk of the sum arising from the sale of the estate
being vested in two of the most stable banks of the Union.
With the money he took with him, carefully deposited in his saddlebags,
for he performed the whole of the journey on horseback, Mr. Heywood had
caused the cottage already described, to be built and furnished from
Detroit, in what, at that period, and so completely at the ultima thule
of American civilization, was considered a style of great luxury. He
had, however, shortly prior to his setting out for Albany, purchased
several hundred acres of land, about two miles up the Southern branch of
the Chicago, leaving instructions with Le Noir, whom he had engaged for
a long term of service, to erect upon it a log building and outhouses.
This he had been induced to do from that aching desire for physical
exertion which had been familiar to him from boyhood, and which he felt
could never be sufficiently indulged within the limited compass of the
little village itself--subjected as he must be to the observation of the
curious and the impertinent. He returned from Albany after a few months'
absence, in the autumn of 1809, bringing with him his friends who
occupied the cottage, while he himself obtained their assent that he
should inhabit the farm house, completed soon after his return. Here
he cut with his own hands, many a cord of the wood that his servants
floated down in rafts, not only for his own family, but to supply the
far more extensive wants of the garrison, with which, however, he
had little or no intercourse, beyond that resulting from his business
relations.
Such was the condition of things at the period at which our narrative
has opened. Maria Heywood had now been three years an occupant of the
cottage, and within that time solitude and habits of reflection had
greatly matured her mind, as years had given every womanly grace to her
person. The past had also tended much to form her character, upon which
the development of physical beauty so often depends. At her first debut
into society at Charleston, in her fourteenth year--an age that would
have been considered premature, but for the rapidity with which form
and intellect are known to ripen in that precocious climate--she had
received, but listened with indifference to the vapid compliments of men
whose shallowness she was not slow to detect, and whose homage conveyed
rather a fulsome tribute to her mere personal beauty, than a correct
appreciation of her heart and understanding. Not that it is to be
inferred that she prided herself unduly upon this latter, but because it
was by that standard of conduct chiefly, that she was enabled to judge
of the minds of those who evinced so imperfect a knowledge of the female
heart, when, emerging from the gaiety of girlhood, it passes into the
earnestness of womanly feeling.
But although cold--almost repellant to all who had poured their
ephemeral and seldom varying homage in her ear--no woman's heart ever
beat with more kind--more generous--more devoted sentiments, than her
own. Possessed of a vivid imagination, which the general quietude of her
demeanor in a great degree disowned, she had already sketched within her
glowing mind her own beau ideal, whose image was a talisman to deaden
her heart against the influence of these soulless realities.
With such sentiments as these had Maria Heywood cheerfully consented to
accompany her parents to that secluded spot, from which there was little
probability of a speedy return; but solitude, so far from weakening the
strong impressions that had entwined themselves around her heart, from
the moment of her emancipation from childhood, only served to invest
them with new power. The more her feelings repined--the more expanded
her intellect--the stronger became the sense of absence of one who could
enter into, and in some degree, give a direction to all her thoughts
and emotions--sharing with her the rich fruit that springs from the
consciousness of kindred associations of mind. But this was the secret
of her own heart--of the heart of one whose personal attractions were
well suited to the rich and overflowing character of her soul, and
who had now attained that age which gives eloquent expression to every
movement of the ripely moulded form.
Above the middle size, the figure of Maria Heywood was at once
gracefully and nobly formed. Her face, of a chiselled oval, was of
a delicate olive tint, which well harmonized with eyes of a lustrous
hazel, and hair of glossy raven black. A small mouth, bordered by lips
of coral fulness, disclosed, when she smiled, teeth white and even;
while a forehead, high for her sex, combined with a nose, somewhat more
aquiline than Grecian, to give dignity to a countenance that might,
otherwise, have exhibited a character of voluptuous beauty. Yet,
although her features, when lighted up by vivacity or emotion, were
radiant with intelligence; their expression when in repose was of a
pensive cast, that, contrasted with her general appearance, gave to it
a charm, addressed at once to sense and sentiment, of which it is
impossible, by description, to give an adequate idea. A dimpled cheek,
an arm, hand and foot, that might have served the statuary as a model,
completed a person which, without exaggeration, might be deemed almost,
if not wholly faultless.
The habits of Mr. Heywood were of that peculiar nature--his desire of
isolation from every thing that could be called society was so obvious,
that for the first year of the residence of the family at Chicago,
scarcely any intercourse had been maintained between the inmates of the
cottage and the officers' wives; and it was only on the occasion of
the commanding officer giving a party, to celebrate the anniversary of
American Independence on the following year, that the first approach
to an acquaintance had been made. It had been deemed by him a matter of
duty to invite all of the few American families that were settled in the
neighborhood, and of course the Heywoods were of the number. On the same
principle of conventionalism the invitation was accepted, and not slight
was the surprise of the ladies of the garrison, when they found in the
secluded occupants of the cottage, to whom they had assigned a doubtful
position in society, those to whom no effort of their own prejudice
could refuse that correct estimate, which quiet dignity without
ostentation, is ever certain to command.
At the announcement of the names of Mrs. and Miss Heywood, the somewhat
stately Mrs. Headley was disposed to receive with hauteur the inmates of
the cottage, but no sooner had Maria Heywood, accompanied by her gentle
mother, entered the apartment with the easy and composed air of one to
whom the drawing-room is familiar, than all her prejudices vanished, and
with a heart warming towards her, as though she, had been the cherished
sister of her love, she arose, pressed her hand affectionately and
welcomed her to the Fort with the sincerity of a generous and elevated
nature, anxious to repair its own wrong.
From that period, both by the wife of the commandant, and by Mrs.
Elmsley--the only two ladies in the garrison, Maria Heywood was as much
liked and courted, as she had previously been disregarded. To deny that
the noble girl did in some measure exult in this change, would be to
do wrong to the commendable pride of a woman, who feels that the unjust
prejudice which had cast a false shadow over her recent life, has
at last been removed, and that the value, of which she was modestly
conscious, began to be appreciated.
It was at this party that her acquaintance with the young Southerner had
commenced, and it is needless to trace the gradual rise of an attachment
which similarity of tastes had engendered. Naturally of an ardent
disposition, the youth had, as we have remarked on a previous occasion,
hitherto loved to indulge in the excitement of the wild sports of the
forest and the prairie, as the only present means of giving freedom
to that spirit of enterprise, so usually wedded to the generous and
unoccupied mind; but, from the period of his acquaintance with Maria
Heywood, a total change had come over his manner of life. The hunt--the
chase--and the cup that so often succeeded, were now almost wholly
abandoned, and his only delight NOW in excursions was to ride with her
across the prairie, or to pull her in his light skiff either along the
shores of the Michigan, or through the various branches of the river,
contemplating the beautiful Heavens by moonlight, and indulging in
speculations, which were not more the fruit of romantic temperament,
than of the intensity of Love. He had, moreover, four dogs trained
to draw her in a light sledge of his own device and construction, in
winter. In these rambles she was usually accompanied either by Mrs.
Headley, or by the wife of his friend and brother subaltern, and after
the invigorating exercise of the day, his evenings, whenever he could
absent himself from the Fort, were devoted within the cottage to books,
magic, and the far more endearing interchange of the resources of their
gifted minds. In summer there were other employments of a domestic
character, for in addition to their rides, walks, and excursions on the
water, both found ample scope for the indulgence of their partiality for
flowers, in the taste for practical horticulture possessed by Ronayne,
under whose care had grown the luxuriant beauty which every where
pervaded the little garden, and made it to the grateful girl a paradise
in miniature.
Thus had passed nearly two years, and insensibly, without a word of love
having been breathed, each felt all the security which a consciousness
of being beloved alone could yield, and that assurance imparted to their
manner and address when alone a confiding air, the more endearing from
the silence of their lips. But although no word uttered by themselves
proclaimed the existence of the secret and holy compact, not only were
they fully sensible of it themselves, but it was obvious to all--even to
the least observant of the garrison, and many were there, both among the
soldiers and their wives--by all of whom the young ensign was liked for
his openness and manliness of character--who expressed a fervent hope
that the beautiful and amiable Miss Heywood would soon become the bride
of their favorite officer. This it was, which had led the men of the
fishing-party to express in their way, their sorrow for the young lady,
when she should hear of the events at the farm-house, even while passing
their rude encomiums on the sweetness of disposition of her, whom they
already regarded as the wife of their young officer.
It was nearly noon, and Lieutenant Elmsley had not yet made his
appearance with the promised report. Maria Heywood had, after passing an
hour with her mother, returned to the breakfast-room, which it will be
recollected opened immediately upon the barrack-square. Her friend being
engaged with her domestic affairs, which every lady was at that period
in a measure compelled to superintend, she had thrown herself (still in
her morning dishabille) on a couch with a book in her hand, but with a
mind wholly distracted from the subject of its pages. After continuing
some time thus, a prey to nervous anxiety, as much the result of
Elmsley's long absence as of her former fears, the sound of the fifes
and drums fell startlingly, she knew not wherefore, upon her ear and
drew her to the door. The men were falling in, and in the course of a
few minutes the little line was formed a few yards to her left, with its
flanks resting on either range of building, so that the mess-room door,
then open, was distinctly visible in front. At the same moment, Captain
Headley and the lieutenant, followed by Corporal Nixon and the other
men of the fishing-party--Green only excepted--passed out of the orderly
room on her right, moved across, and took up their position in front of
the parade.
“God bless me, Maria, what is that, or is it his ghost!” suddenly and
unguardedly exclaimed Mrs. Elmsley, who had that moment joined her
friend--placing her arm at the same time round her waist.
“What do you mean, Mar--” but before Maria Heywood could complete her
sentence, all power of speech was taken from her in the emotion with
which she regarded what, after a momentary glance, met her view.
It was her lover, fully equipped for parade, and walking towards the
men with a calm and deliberate step, which seemed to evince total
unconsciousness that any thing unusual had happened.
“Here is a chair, my love--you really tremble as if the man was a ghost.
Now then, we shall have a scene between him and our amiable commandant.”
“God forbid!” tremulously answered the almost bewildered girl; “I am the
cause of all.”
“You! Stuff, Maria. What nonsense you talk, for a sensible girl. How
should you be the cause? but, positively, Ronayne can never have been
away from the Fort.”
“Do you think so, Margaret?”
“I am sure of it. Only look at him. He is as spruce as if he had only
just come out of a band-box. But hush, not a word. There, that's a dear.
Lean your head against my shoulder. Don Bombastes speaks!”
“No sign of Mr. Ronayne yet?” demanded Captain Headley, his back turned
to the slowly advancing officer, whose proximity not one of the men
seemed inclined to announce, possibly because they feared rebuke for
insubordination. Mr. Elmsley, he pursued to that officer, who, acting
on a significant half-glance from his friend, was silent also as to his
approach. “Let a formal report of his absence without leave, be made to
me immediately after the parade has been dismissed.”
“Nay, sir,” said the ensign, in his ordinary voice and close in the ear
of the speaker, “not as having been absent from duty, I trust. I am
not aware that I have ever missed a guard or a parade yet, without your
leave.”
At the first sound of his voice, the surprised commandant had turned
quickly round, and there encountered the usual deferential salute of his
subordinate.
“But, Mr. Ronayne, what means this? Where, sir, have you been? and, if
not absent, why thus late? Do you know that the men have already been
paraded, and that when required for your guard, you were not to be
found?”
“The fatigues of the night, Captain Headley,” returned the young
officer, with some hesitation of manner; “the incessant watching--surely
there--”
“I knew he had not been out of the Fort. Courage, Maria! was audible to
the men who were nearest to the speaker, from Elmsley's doorway.
“I know what you would urge, Mr. Ronayne,” remarked the captain; “you
would offer this in plea for your late appearance. I make all due
allowance in the matter; but, let me tell you, sir, that an officer
who thoroughly understands his duty, and consults the interests of
the service, would make light of these matters, in cases of strong
emergency.”
“Poor Ronayne!” sighed Maria, to her friend. “This is terrible to his
proud spirit. In presence of the whole of the men, too!”
“I told you, my dear, there would be a row, but never fear--Elmsley
be there. See, he is looking significantly at us, as if to call our
attention to what is passing.”
The lieutenant had been no less astonished than the captain, at the
unexpected appearance of Ronayne--even more so, indeed--because he had
observed, without, however, remarking on it, the cool and unhastened
pace at which he moved along the square, from the direction of the
mess-room. “Now it is coming,” he thought, and half-murmured to himself,
as he saw the crimson gathering on his brow, during the last harsh
address of his superior.
“Captain Headley,” said the young man, drawing himself up to his full
height, and somewhat elevating his voice, for he had remarked there were
other and dearer eyes upon him, than those immediately around. “I WILL
NOT be spoken to in this manner, before the men. If you think I have
been guilty of a breach of duty or of discipline, I am prepared to meet
your charges before the proper tribunal, but you shall not take the
liberty of thus addressing me in public parade. My sword, sir,” and he
unbuckled it, and offered the handle, “is at, your disposal, but I deny
your further right.”
“No, no, no!” shouted several men from the ranks
“No, no, no!” repeated almost every man of the fishing-party, in even
more energetic tones, while the commanding officer was glancing his eye
keenly and rapidly along the little line, to detect those who had set
the example of insubordination.
“Ugh! wah! good soger!” came from one of a small party of Indians in the
rear, as the disconcerted captain turned, frowningly, from the men in
front to those who had followed him from the orderly room, and now stood
grouped on the inner flank.
“What is the meaning of all this?” he cried, in a loud and angry voice.
“Am I braved in my own command, and by my own men? Mr. Elmsley, who are
these Indians, and how came they in?”
“They are a part of the encampment without, sir. There was no order
given against their admission this morning, besides it is Winnebeg, and
you have said that the gates of the Fort was to be open to him at all
hours.”
“Ah! Winnebeg, my friend, how do you do. I did not know it was you or
your people. You know you are always welcome.”
“How do, gubbernor,” answered the chief, coming round from the rear of
the line, and taking the proffered hand--“'Spose not very angry now--him
good warrior--him good soger,” and he pointed to the young subaltern.
“Ensign Ronayne is, no doubt, very sensible to your good opinion,”
remarked the captain, with evident pique; “but, Winnebeg, as I am sure
you never allow a white man to interfere with you, when you find fault
with your young chiefs, you must let me do the same.”
“What find him fault for?” asked the chief, with some surprise; “brave
like a devil!”
“Captain Headley,” interposed the ensign, with some impatience, “am I to
surrender my sword, or resume my duty?”
But the captain either could not, or would not give a direct answer.
“Can you give me a good reason, Mr. Ronayne, why I should not receive
your sword? Do you deny that you have been guilty of neglect of duty?”
“In what?” was the brief demand.
“In being absent from the Fort, without leave, sir.”
“Indeed! To substantiate that, you must bring proofs, Captain Headley.
Who,” and he looked around him, as if challenging his accuser, “pretends
to have seen me beyond these defences?”
The commandant was for some moments at a loss, for he had not
anticipated this difficulty. At length he resumed. “Was it not to be
absent without leave, that, when the guard was all ready to be marched
off, you were not to be found?”
“Had the guard been marched off, or the parade even formed, I should of
course, have come justly under your censure, Captain Headley; but it was
not so--you ordered the parade and guard-mounting for a later hour. I am
here at that hour.”
“Hem!” returned the commandant, who was in some degree obliged to admit
the justice of the remark; “you defend yourself more in the spirit of a
lawyer, than of a soldier, Mr. Ronayne, but all this difficulty is soon
set at rest. I require but your simple denial that you have been absent
from the Fort, within the last twenty-four hours. That given, I shall be
satisfied.”
“And that, sir,” was the firm reply of the youth, “I am not disposed to
give. I am not much versed in military prudence, Captain Headley,” he
pursued, after a few moments' pause, and in a tone of slight irony,
which that officer did not seem to perceive, “but at least sufficient to
induce me to reserve what I have to say for my defence. You have charged
me, sir, with having been absent from the Fort without leave; and it is
for you to prove that fact before a competent authority.”
“March off your guard, Mr. Ronayne,” was the abrupt rejoinder of the
commandant, for he liked not the continuation of a scene in which the
advantage seemed not to rest with him, but with the very party whom he
had sought to chasten; “Mr. Elmsley dismiss the parade. I had intended
promoting on the spot, Corporal Nixon and private Collins for their
conduct yesterday, but the gross insubordination I have just seen, has
caused me to change my mind. Neither shall have the rank intended, until
the guilty parties are named. I give until the hour of parade to-morrow
for their production, and if, by that time, their names are not laid
before me, no such promotion shall take place while I command the
garrison. Dismiss the men, sir. Here, Winnebeg, my good fellow, you have
come at a good moment. I have dispatches to send to Detroit this very
evening, and I know no one I can trust so well as yourself.”
“Good,” was the answer, “Winnebeg always ready to do him order--no angry
more, gubbernor, with young chief,” pointing to the ensign, as he moved
off with his small guard. “Dam good soger--you see dis?” and he touched
his scalping-knife with his left hand, and looked very significantly.
“No, Winnebeg, not angry any more,” was the reply; “but how do you know
him to be good soger? What has your scalping-knife to do with it?”
“Winnebeg know all,” said the chief gravely, as he laid his heavy hand
upon the shoulder of the commandant, “but can't tell. Young chief say
no, and Winnebeg love young chief.”
This remark forcibly struck Captain Headley, and brought back to his
mind, certain recollections. He, however, asked no further question, but
pointed, as they moved in the direction of his own apartments, towards
the sun, showing by his gesture that it was not too early to take the
mid-day dram.
“Where the devil have you been, man, and with what confounded impudence
you got through the scrape,” was remarked at a distant part of the same
ground, and at the same moment with the conversation just given.
“How is Maria?” eagerly asked Ronayne. “When shall I see her?”
“Well enough to hear all that passed between you and Military Prudence,”
returned his friend; “but that is no answer to my question.”
“There was nothing like braving it,” answered the other evasively; “but
I say, Elmsley, I am devilish hungry, that breakfast you invited me to
last night is over long ago, of course.” This last sentence was uttered
in a mock piteous tone.
“Just what I was going to speak about, my dear boy. We have had number
ONE, but before half an hour, we shall be seated at number TWO. When
your sergeant has relieved his sentries, come over and you will find a
piping hot breakfast.”
“Will it be quite consistent with military prudence to leave my guard
so soon, after the lecture I have had?” remarked the ensign, with a
smile--“but, ah! I had nearly forgotten. Elmsley, I must say a few words
to you before I go in, and a better opportunity cannot be afforded than
while we are walking from this to your place. Just go then, and order
the breakfast as you propose, and return here. I shall have completed
the arrangements of the guard by that time, and all that I have to ask
of you, can be answered as we go along.”
“I hope it is no great secret you have to impart,” returned the
lieutenant, “for I am a sad hand at the mysterious, and shall be sure to
tell my wife, if I do not tell Maria.”
“Not you--you will tell neither, but au revoir.”