In Direst Peril

me, and never come to a finish. But I have to take hold of myself, as it were, with resolu

ance, the names of the people who are most closely and intimately concerned in what I have to tell; and having done that, I must resolve to restrict my narrative to the history of their sayings and doings. Such a countless crowd of people surge up into memory that this is more difficult than any one would fancy. All my old comrades in deliberation, my friends in council, my companions in the war of later on are with me at times as I sit and think over the incidents of this story. The odd part of it is

ere are left the count, and Miss Rossano, and the faithful Hinge. Then there is the ghost of poor Constance Pleyel, who came like a wraith out of the past and vanished again into the darkness; then t

e and main-spring of my life, for it was she who embarked

nor shall I be the last. I would very willingly keep silent about that episode in my life, but the story has to be told. It shall be told with due reticence; fo

dily to take up the lost threads of life. The most remarkable thing about him, even if on the whole it were the least surprising, was the survival of the patriotic impulse in his mind. It seemed as if nothing could quench that, and as if all his suffering had served only to lend new fuel to that sacred flame. By this time he was deep in all our councils, the

to suspect him, and that I distrusted him from the beginning. I never thought him likely to be guilty of deliberate treason, but I always feared 'his rash and boastful tongue, and I confess that I did something here and there to inspire my comrades with the sense

able opinion, and neither his judgment nor his conscience-if he had either one or the other-stood in the way of this amiable weakness. He was more amenable to flattery than a child, and was moved by it as easily to go

s in his own way to conciliate my friendship. He knew what I thought about him, and yet he sought my acquaintance, and did what he c

t him. He was on fire for immediate action, and I had felt it my duty to plead for delay. We had parted rather hotly, and he made it his first business to apologize to

id at last, "and I feel it all the more becaus

es about the proper means of reaching them. I think there is no possibili

God! my dear Fyffe, how should th

vice; that makes you wish him well forever afterwards. I should have honored and esteemed the Count Rossano if he had

was complete, "and I am so much in need of advice, that I ventu

hat I was entirely at his service; and after an

rise. I should have been less troubled in dealing with it if he had not assured me that, with my consent, he is fairly certain of my daughter's. I should be wrong," he added-"I should be altogether wrong if I claimed any authority over her. I have not the right to suc

etrievably in debt, and I had never really feared until that moment that his opposition would take real form. A lover is always jealous, and I had envied my rival his faculty of small talk, his cheery, easy temper, and those touches of gallant attention of which practice and nature had made him master. I had been very angry sometimes at his success in pleasing. But a certain contempt

, and suffering sorely, when the c

I feel the delicac

world," I said, "to be c

that!" cri

epeated. "I can have no voice in

. Brunow was certainly not the man to make her happy, whatever fancy he might have inspired in her mind, and yet it was no business of mine to say so. I was his riva

dvise me?" sa

t to advise you

on look. I had learned to know him as so high-minded, so brave and so honorable a gentleman that it pains me even to think of the jail-bird aspect which came upon him at times. Hi

aid, suddenly. "You do not refuse to

I answered. "I cannot advise, be

I am a stranger to the world-a child, and less than a child. I owe to this man and to you everything I am and

gle to control myself, an

hemselves. I have no doubt that Miss Rossano will attach full weight to your judgment a

had even ventured to think-Ah, well, my dear Fyffe,

, if I could,

and more broken and furtive in manner than I had see

"but what I owe to one I owe to the other, and I had hoped things would have gone differe

lly in him. I do not remember ever to have felt so miserable and so hopeless; but I sat down and filled my pip

ng with a curiously awakened interest the traffic in t

shaking me gently, "am I utterly mi

ir?" I asked, without tu

n paused-"I had thought that you would have put th

"and he has a right to be answered. You can gu

g very strangely, but I have thought that you cared for my child. I had hoped that it was so, and I had hoped that she might c

t be blamed for having told you. I should have spoken to you weeks ago, but you see how I live." He cast hi

ou might tell me this. It was that which le

lieve that she cared for me, and perhaps he had taken advantage of Brunow's proposal to awake me to a sense of my own wasted opportunities. I put that fancy by, for intimate as I had grown to be

am certain of my own. Mr. Brunow's declaration took me by surprise, but

t disguise the fact that he has more than once spoken to me of his attachment to her. He mentioned that months ago, but in such a way that I hardly suppose

s matter like a man of the world, you will have a right to laugh at my presumption. I was a man of the world once, but that was long ago. I have

t he was choosing words in which to make his meaning clear to me. He looked up at last, with his gray face illumi

at all she will follow her own inclination, after the fashion of young ladies in this country. Even if I had had the authority which a life-long watch over her would have given me, I should never have dreamed of using it. But this is the plain English of the matter. I would gladly trust my child with you, and I should be sorry to trust her with Mr. Brunow. That sounds ungrateful to him, for I owe him an enormous service; but there are duties

ndly grateful for it, and that I h

awaited a similar verdict might picture for himself. I did not stir from my rooms for several days, and a

p the stair, and somebody knocked with an angry and passionate insistence at the outer door of my chambers. Hinge, startled by th

runow, what on ea

ed the room I sat in, and, banging the door noisily behind him, faced me, still grasping in his ri

!" said Brunow; "yo

pened. Of course an absolute certainty was out of the question, but I felt the next thing to it; and what with the exulting though

ow stammered, his stic

or he looked as if he were fit for any sort of mischief, "this is cur

or your comfort, but you may take this to flavor it. I took you for an honest man until a quarter of an hour

esponded. "You will be good enough to tell me at once

ling with a man like you! You have my opinion of you, and you kn

I was at the

nough for me. You don't leave this room with my good-will u

for you! Stand by and let me go, or-" he raised his stick with a threatening gesture, but at that I could afford to sm

his teeth tight clinched behind them-"I wonder th

ow," I answered. "You will be able to find an easy explanation. Te

w?" he sneered. "You can't

me without justifying it. A gentleman having under any fancied se

an arm-chair. "I won't bluster with you, but I decline to explain or

nd then putting it in my pocket, "we shall both have a

s forefinger in ray face, "do you pretend to deny that months and mon

retty little income of her own. You coupled those two facts together in suc

of justifying yourself. Your affection has nothing mercenary in it, of course. In that respect you're above suspicion. A

w had for his anger and resentment. But the words he used were almost too much for my endurance, and I was glad that a ring sounded at the hall bell, and that Hinge, who, I have

i Rossano, i