“I will not have this said, Major Stapylton. I know whom you mean, and I don't believe a word of it.”
Stapylton simply shrugged his shoulders, and continued to pace the room without speaking, while Barrington went on muttering, half aloud: “No, no, impossible; quite impossible. These things are not in nature. I don't credit them.”
“You like to think very well of the world, sir!” said the Major, with a faint scorn, so faint as scarcely to color his words.
“Think very badly of it, and you 'll soon come down to the level you assign it,” said Peter, boldly.
“I 'm afraid I 'm not in the humor just now to give it my best suffrages. You 've seen, I doubt not, something of the treatment I have met with from the Press for the last few weeks; not very generous usage,—not very just. Well! what will you say when I tell you that I have been refused an inquiry into my conduct at Manchester; that the Government is of opinion that such an investigation might at the moment be prejudicial to the public peace, without any counterbalancing advantage on the score of a personal vindication; that they do not deem the time favorable for the calm and unbiassed judgment of the country; in one short word, sir, they 'd rather ruin a Major of Hussars than risk a Cabinet. I am to exchange into any corps or any service I can; and they are to tide over these troubles on the assumption of having degraded me.”
“I hope you wrong them,—I do hope you wrong them!” cried Barrington, passionately.
“You shall see if I do,” said he, taking several letters from his pocket, and searching for one in particular. “Yes, here it is. This is from Aldridge, the private secretary of the Commander-in-chief. It is very brief, and strictly secret:—
“'Dear S.,—The “Chief” does not like your scrape at all. You did rather too much, or too little,—a fatal mistake dealing with a mob. You must consent—there's no help for it—to be badly used, and an injured man. If you don't like the half-pay list,—which would, in my mind, be the best step,—there 's the Seventeenth ordered to Baroda, and Maidstone refuses to go. This, or the Second West India, are the only things open. Above all, don't show fight; don't rally a party round you, for there is not a man in England whose influence is sufficiently great to stand between you and the public. A conple of years' patience and a hot climate will set all right, and reinstate you everywhere. Come over here at once and I 'll do my best for you.
“'Yours ever,
“'St. George Aldridge.'