She was more than pretty, with a violet-coloured velvet jacket, embroidered with gold, under which she wore a habit-shirt of the softest white cambric; and her dark sheeny hair was braided close round her small head, not under, but over a skull-cap of crimson cloth.
These, and other details, Cecil took note of next day, rather than on the night in question; and closing his eyes, he strove to collect his thoughts and think—think of what, or of whom, but Mary Montgomerie?
He was now to deem as past and gone for ever the love that made his veins to tingle and his heart to thrill in his bosom; yet he could not but remember with intense tenderness the last kiss she had given him, and the time—one of those, so some one says, that are given us by God to help us by the sweetness of their memory, in weary days to come.
She was so far away—so far away! It seemed he could but think of her as the living do of the dead—perhaps as the dead may do of the living.
To him the slow hours were passed restlessly—almost without repose. 'There is,' says a writer, 'a strong contrast between a sleepless night and the first hours that follow it. Everything appears from so different a point of view! The phantoms of night become again familiar objects, in the same way as in the region of ideas things gigantic reassume ordinary proportions. We fancy we are contending with the impossible, and find ourselves in presence of paltry difficulties. We believed that heroism was demanded of us, and find that it is simple duty we have to accomplish.'
So it was with Cecil when day dawned, and brought with it ideas that were practical.
Betimes came Theodore with hot coffee on a silver salver, which he proffered with a military salute, and the information that 'his excellency's' horse had been attended to at the stables, and there was his uniform, dry and brushed to perfection, with his pistols and sword, burnished as only an old soldier could burnish them, for Theodore had served with the Austrian army in Bohemia, and been twice wounded at Sadowa, where his regiment was that remarkable one which perished nearly to a man under the new and terrible fire of the Prussian needle-gun; with all of which facts he informed Cecil, while re-dressing his hurt and assisting him to attire.
He also informed him of something else—that he was in the family residence of Michail, Count Palenka; and so, by mid-day, with his arm in a sling, Cecil expressed his anxiety to thank his hostess, the widowed mother of the count, for her kindness to him.
He announced himself as 'Sub-Lieutenant Cecil Falconer, of "Tchernaieff's Own," aide-de-camp on the staff,' and was ushered into the presence of the ladies whom he had seen on the preceding night.
'The preserver of my son's life in the battle by the Morava!' exclaimed the countess, coming forward and taking his left hand between both of hers, and gazing upon his face with humid yet beaming eyes.