"Heaven!" replied the little woman tartly; and being offended probably at Ronald's impetuosity, she closed the panel in his face without ceremony.
The fragile and delicate creature,—how utterly unsuited for the life to which she had been doomed—had fallen a victim to the vile and stupid superstition that had consigned her to a Convent. While attending, in her mild and gentle innocency, on the sick in one of the military hospitals, she had been attacked with a violent fever that raged there, and wasted quickly away under its fiery power.
Stuart reeled against the iron-studded door as the words of the portière fell upon his ear, for at that moment he felt sick at heart, and his knees tottered with weakness; but he walked away as quickly as he could, till the requiem of the sisterhood and the iron clang of the bell could no longer be heard amidst the bustle of the Rue aux Laines.
"Poor Antoinette!" thought he, as he turned down the Rue Royale and, skirting the famous park, made straight for his billet—"fair and gentle as she was, she deserved a better fate than to perish in such a den of gloomy superstition and of blind devotion."
The poor girl's death made him very sad for some days; but the impression which her beauty and artlessness had made upon him wore away as he grew better, and became able to frequent the cafés, the park, the Rue Bellevue, and other public places of resort at Brussels. There the important events following the great victory at Waterloo,—the capture of Paris, the public entry of Louis XVIII., the flight of Buonaparte, and his surrender to Captain Maitland of the Bellerophon, were all canvassed fully and freely, amidst the boasts of the Belgians about the wonders performed by their countrymen on the glorious 18th of June!
After residing in Brussels about two months, Stuart reported himself "well," and was appointed to take command of three hundred convalescents, who were declared fit for service by a medical board, and were to rejoin the Highlanders at Paris "forthwith."
Early on the morning of his departure, just as Ronald was getting on his harness, a man who brought the widow's letters from the Hôtel des Postes, placed in his hand one addressed to himself. He tore it open: it was from Lisle, dated "Edinburgh," and ran thus:—
"Dear Stuart,
I have merely written a short note to announce my arrival in Scotland, and that all are well at Inchavon. Your uncle, old Sir Colquhoun Monteith of Cairntowis, has taken his departure to a better world; and, as we cannot regret his death, allow me to congratulate you on becoming possessed of seven thousand a-year, with one of the finest estates in Scotland for shooting and coursing. Messrs. Diddle and Fleece, W.S., Edinr., will send you further intelligence. I have since seen, by the Gazette, that Cluny Monteith, your cousin, died of his wound somewhere on the Brussels road.
Yours, &c."