"For what shall I condescend to mention her name?" thought he. "To ask in a trembling tone after one who has forsaken me thus, becomes me not. Faithless Alice! neither farewell word, token, or letter has she sent me; but—but I will be calm!" and he placed his hand upon the little miniature, which at that moment he imagined was pressing like a load upon his heart.
"Good Heaven, Stuart! you are certainly very unwell," said Louis anxiously, his indignant feelings giving way to concern. "What can I do for you?"
"Oh! 'tis nothing. It is past—a spasm—the wound I received at Merida."
"Are you still troubled by it?"
"No; that is—I mean—"
He was relieved from his embarrassment by an exclamation of surprise and intense disgust from Lisle, who suddenly leaped up from the green turf on which they were seated.
"It is a skull!" he exclaimed, turning something round and white out of the sod with his foot.
"A skull?"
"Yes; I knew not what it was. I felt something round and smooth lying half sunk in the earth, and my hand rested on it for some time. How does it come to lie here?"
"No uncommon affair in Spain. It is the head of one of those poor fellows I told you of. I saw him killed here the day Long's brigade of horse drove the French advanced picquet into the cork wood."