"Ah, we had peace with Britain in 1768," said the count, averting his eyes, and endeavouring to assume a composure which he did not feel under the keen scrutiny of Dorset's eye. "And so we meet again—fortune has cast us together once more."
"Fortune—say rather fatality," replied White, as some old memory shook his withered heart.
"Did you ever hear how or why you were arrested?"
"Once, and once only—I was told—I was told that it was on the authority of a lettre de cachet, filled up by King Louis in the name of the Comte de Montmorin."
"It is an infamous falsehood!" exclaimed the count, passionately.
"Perhaps so," sighed White, meekly; "the man who told me so has been dead twenty-three years."
"And this arrest was"—
"On the anniversary of Ticonderoga—the night of the 15th of July, 1761."
"The 15th of July!" exclaimed the countess, wildly, and in a piercing voice; "on the morning of that very day my desk was rifled of your letters, and your miniature, Adam White!—O my friend—I see it all—I see this horrible mystery!"
White turned his hollow eyes and haggard visage towards her in wonder. He passed a hand repeatedly across his eyes, as if to clear his thoughts, then shook his white head, and relapsed into dreamy vacancy. After a painful pause, "That voice," said he, "is like one which used to come to me often—very often—in the Bastille; in my dreams it used to mingle with the rustle of the straw I slept on."