“I suppose it's all great luck!” muttered he to himself; “but up to this I see no end of difficulty and trouble.”
CHAPTER XXVI. UNPLEASANT EXPLANATIONS
Beecher had scarcely dropped off to sleep when he was awoke by a heavy, firm tread in the room; he started up, and saw it was Davis.
“How is the noble Viscount?” said Grog, drawing a chair and seating himself. “I came over here post haste when I got the news.”
“Have you told her?” asked Beecher, eagerly.
“Told her! I should think I have. Was it not for the pleasure of that moment that I came here,—here, where they could arrest me this instant and send me off to the fortress of Rastadt? I shot an Austrian officer in the garrison there four years ago.”
“I heard of it,” groaned Beecher, from the utmost depth of his heart “So that she knows it all?”
“She knows that you are a peer of England, and that she is a peeress.”
Beecher looked at the man as he spoke, and never before did he appear to him so insufferably insolent and vulgar. Traits which he had in part forgotten or overlooked now came out in full force, and he saw him in all the breadth of his coarseness. As if he had read what was passing in Beecher's mind, Davis stared fully at him, resolute and defiant.