"No, I am going back to the castle. I leave you alone to manage your Englishmen and your triumph; for the latter that priggish volunteer, that E., has already cared. He snatched your poem from me to read to his comrades. And listen, Walter, when you have gone your rounds, come for half an hour at least, to our quarters. You are falling past rescue in the esteem of our captain, who alone refuses to recognize in you a future celebrity,--you do not drink enough for him."
With a laughing adieu, the surgeon returned to the castle, while Fernow started for the village. Frederic stamped on behind not taking his eyes for a moment from his master. But these eyes had an entirely changed expression. Once they had gazed at the professor, only with the anxiety one shows in guarding a sick, helpless child that may easily come to harm; now there lay a silent awe, a boundless admiration in the glance which followed the slightest motion of the "Lieutenant." The devotion of the faithful servant had withstood more than a fiery trial; it had become proverbial in the company.
At the entrance of the village, before an inn, halted two carriages which had arrived, one after the other. The first, which had come a quarter of an hour soonest, had been first ordered back, but its occupants would not submit to the necessity imposed upon them. Unfortunately, he understood no German, the soldiers no English, and they were obliged to carry on their conversation in the most execrable French--a very difficult and tedious proceeding. But the stranger, who resorted to his papers, had at last succeeded in obtaining a promise that his case should be laid before the proper officer, and still excited by the conversation, with grim forehead and contracted eyebrows, he had just entered the door of the inn, when the second carriage drove up. A gentleman stepped from it and approached the house. The eyes of the two met, and an expression of surprise broke at the same moment from the lips of each.
"Mr. Atkins!"
"Henry!"
"How come you here?" asked Alison, who was first to recover from his astonishment.
"I came from N. And you?"
"Direct from Paris! I dared not remain there longer, the investment began to grow serious. But I have been detained here; they will not allow me to continue my journey."
"And they will not allow us to pass."
"Us!" repeated Alison slowly. "Are you not alone?!" And as if startled by a sudden idea, he added hastily: "I cannot hope to find Miss Forest in your company?"