CHAPTER XI.
OMNIA VINCIT AMOR.
'In the course of our lives it chances,' says a writer truly, 'that most of us influence directly or indirectly, in a greater or lesser degree, the lives of others; but, as a general rule, we do not recognise this influence until after the effect has taken place.'
The Commandant of the Scots Brigade was yet to realise this.
There was a strange tremor in the usually stout heart of the general now, for though, after the sudden recognition of his first and, sooth to say, only love, he had begun to school himself to meet her with calmness or indifference, as a new friend, or old acquaintance, he felt himself as wax in her hands; and that it was impossible, even after the lapse of all these years, to meet her unmoved, and to sit eye to eye, and listening to her voice—the voice that had thrilled his heart in the old time, and was thrilling it now again.
He took her hand in his, and she permitted him to retain it; but for the life of him he knew not what to say, or how to take up the thread of the old story; so she took the initiative.
'You were but a young lieutenant,' said she softly, 'when last we met.'
'And parted, as I said before.'
His reply conveyed a species of reproach, as he had much to forgive; yet it seemed that there was an almost unconscious appeal in this reference to the old tie that bound them together once, and that now, did not seem to have been so completely severed after all.
'To my dying day, Mercedes, I thought I should remember your farewell glance at me,' said he.