“If such had been the case, the police would have looked after him sharp,” interposed Overberg.
“That is my opinion also,” said the Captain; “and I think Wilibald Smeekens was right. He said it was some one who had formerly committed a breach of military discipline, and whom she out of pity wished to assist in getting out of the country.”
“Ahem! out of pity,” said the old lady. “Young ladies should be careful how they show such pity—carrying on an intrigue. I can assure you that at the time it was a question whether we ought not to banish her from our society.”
“But no one dared to pronounce the sentence of banishment,” said the Captain, “for fear of the Colonel, who had it in his power to refuse the military music for the balls and open-air concerts in summer. And this he certainly would have done if he had known what was hatching against his granddaughter. But the ladies were more prudent; they pulled poor Francis to pieces behind her back.”
“With this result,” added the elderly spinster, “that of her own accord she almost entirely withdrew from our society.”
“No, there is another reason,” said the widow, with a significant shake of the head; “it was not our treatment, but her own conscience which pricked her after that affair with her coachman.”
“Yes, you are quite right; that was a sad affair,” assented the Captain, to my painful surprise.
The honourable man, who had evidently combatted calumny and slander, was now silenced. I wished to ask what had happened, but the words stuck in my throat; I felt as if they would choke me. The postmaster, however, who had just entered the room, put the question, which the tongues of the ladies were quivering with impatience to answer.
“Unfortunately, no one knows the exact particulars,” began the elderly spinster, whose shrill, sharp voice made itself heard above the rest; “but it is generally believed she wished to make her coachman elope with her. Possibly she might have succeeded, but the man was already married, and when that became known——”
“She pitched him off the box whilst the horses were going at a furious rate,” put in the old lady, with a demoniacal smile of pleasure.