"Thanks! thanks!" she cried wildly, and hurriedly imprinting a kiss upon the brow of her prostrated lover, she disappeared with the lightness of a fawn amidst a thicket of standard roses, at the moment when Valentine became visible at the turning of the walk.
"Why brother," the soldier said gaily, "what the deuce are you about here, at the bottom of the garden? Breakfast is waiting for you. I have been looking for you this hour; and if it had not been for Cæsar, I should not have found you now."
The Count turned towards him, his face lathed in tears, and threw his arms round his neck.
"Brother! brother!" he cried, in an accent of despair; "I am the most unhappy of men!"
Valentine looked at him in astonishment. The Count had fainted.
"What on earth is all this about?" said the soldier, casting a suspicious look around him, and laying his foster brother, who was motionless as a corpse, gently upon a grassy bank.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
THE QUINTA VERDE.
Not far from Rio Claro, a charming little city, built in a delicious situation between Santiago and Talca, there was then, and probably is still, upon a hill commanding an extensive view, a pretty quinta, with white walls and green shutters, coquettishly concealed from indiscreet eyes by a thicket of trees of various sorts—oaks, acajous, maples, palms, aloes, cactus, &c., which sprang up and intertwined within each other in such a fashion around it as to form an almost impregnable rampart. It is difficult to explain how, in such a period of convulsions and overthrows, this delicious habitation had hitherto escaped, as if by a miracle, from the devastation and pillage which incessantly menaced it, and which fell without intermission around it, enveloping it, as it were, in a network of ruins, without, however, having ever troubled that tranquil dwelling, although the human tempest had frequently howled beneath its walls, and, in the shade of night, it had often seen the red torches of incendiaries gleam; all at once, though no one knew why, and as if by enchantment, the cries of murder ceased, and the torches became extinguished and harmless in the hands of the men who, a minute before, had waved them about madly. This habitation was named the "Quinta Verde."