'What—you know each other, and he even knows your name!' exclaimed Dolores with blank astonishment.
Finding a necessity for speaking, the Countess thanked him for the service so promptly and gallantly rendered to her daughter, and expressed no small indignation at the daring of Maurice Morganstjern and his abettor; but while she spoke the General listened to her as one in a dream, while the sorely puzzled Dolores looked wonderingly on.
The original of the miniature now concealed in a secret drawer of the Dutch cabinet before referred to, treasured for years through all his alleged misogyny, was again before him.
'It is long since we met,' said the Countess.
'And—parted,' replied the General, in a hard voice.
'You have attained high rank now.'
'I was but a lieutenant in Halkett-Craigie's Battalion, then,' said he pointedly.
'Sir, I pray you to be seated,' and he mechanically took the chair indicated by a motion of her pretty white hand; 'you are not much changed since—since——'
'And you are scarcely changed at all.'
In the lovely matron, in ripe and full womanhood, he had recognised her in a moment—the girl of the hidden miniature, the early love of his youth, Mercedes who had deceived him, who had well-nigh broken his heart and embittered his whole existence.