'Lewie, shall I tell you of what once happened to me?'
But, full of his own terrible thoughts, Lewie made no reply.
'It may have been that evil followed me,' said the General, looking down, with a hand placed in the breast of his coat.
'Evil?' repeated Lewie.
'Yes. When a boy I shot in the wood of Thomineau the last crane that was ever seen in Scotland, and my old nurse predicted that a curse would follow me therefor; thus, I never see a crane on a house-top here that I don't remember her words. Now listen to what happened to me when I was on detachment in the Dutch West India Islands. I belonged then to the battalion of Charles Halkett Craigie, who six years ago died Lieutenant-Governor of Namur, and we garrisoned Fort Nassau, or New Amsterdam as it is called now. There,' continued the General, alternately and nervously toying with his sword-knot and shirt-frill, 'I was silly enough to fall in love with the daughter of a wealthy merchant, a Dutch girl, like your Dolores, with some of the old Castilian blood in her, though a lineal descendant of the great Dutch family of Van Peere, to whom, in 1678, Berbice was granted by the States-General as a perpetual and hereditary fief. She possessed great beauty, and what proved more attractive still, a hundred sweet and winning ways, with the art of saying pretty and even daring little things, that endeared her to all—to none more than me. I was a great ass, of course; but, heavens, what a coquette she was!'
'What was her name?' asked Lewie, with just the smallest amount of interest.
'Excuse me telling, as I have sworn never to utter it again; nor do I wish it to go down in the annals of our family. She wound herself round my heart; my soul, my existence, seemed to be hers. My love for her became a species of idolatry; but poverty tied my tongue, and I dared not speak of it, till one evening, which I shall never forget, the secret left me abruptly, drawn from me by herself. We were lingering in the garden of her father's villa near the Berbice river, and the stars were coming out, one by one, in the deep blue sky above us. The hour was beautiful—all that a lover could wish; and around us the atmosphere was fragrant with the perfume of flowers—among those wonders of the vegetable world—the gigantic water-lilies, each leaf of which is six feet in diameter. I was soon to leave for Holland on duty, and my heart was wrung at the prospect of a separation.
'I had her hand in mine: my secret was trembling on my lips; and gazing into her eyes which were of a golden-brown colour, like that of her hair, I said very softly:
'"If your eyes have at all times an expression so sweet, so beautiful and winning, what must they seem to the man who reads love in them—love for himself!"
'"Can you not read it now?" she asked in a low voice, as she cast her long lashes down.