At last he stood in his old familiar room, where hung more than one old tattered colour of the Brigade, riven by Spanish bullets and Walloon pikes. How much had passed—how great was the change in his thoughts, hopes, and intentions, since he had left it, but a few hours ago!
He scarcely thought himself the same John Kinloch, as he drew forth the miniature from its secret drawer in the old cabinet, and sat down to contemplate it with loving and tender thoughts, and literally to 'feast' his eyes, as the phrase is, on the face of her who, before she went to sleep that night, pressed her ripe coral lips to her own hand; and they sought the exact place where the General, ere leaving, had pressed his.
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION.
We have not much more to relate.
Maurice Morganstjern quitted the Hague suddenly, and betook him on his diplomatic mission, whatever it was, to Paris; and his compatriot the Heer van Schrekhorn thought it conducive to his personal safety to make himself scarce about the same time; so both were beyond the just vengeance of Lewie Baronald.
Great was the amazement of the latter when he found his uncle, the General, quite en famille at the villa of the Countess, and learned from Dolores something of what had transpired on the night of the ridotto, and of her perilous adventure.
It seemed simply incredible!
'How now, uncle, about the name of Mercedes?' he asked him laughingly.
'What about it?' asked the General testily, yet reddening like a great schoolboy.