"It is a fine thing to talk," I muttered, while tossing on my pillow; for I was confined to bed in my dull little room, and for three days was left entirely to my own corroding thoughts.
I had but one crumb of comfort, one lingering hope. She had not asked me to return her ring, nor did I mean to do so, if possible. Once again my arm was slung in a black-silk scarf, which Estelle had insisted on making for me at Craigaderyn. Alas! would the joys of that time ever return to us again? I sent Evans, in uniform and not in my livery, to Whitchurch with the locket, after extracting my likeness therefrom; but he returned with it, saying that the lady had left the inn for London, having no doubt followed her husband. I knew not exactly of what I was accused--a liaison of some kind apparently, of which the strongest proofs had been put before the Cressinghams. If, when able, I wrote to explain that the two meetings with Mrs. Guilfoyle were quite fortuitous, would Estelle believe me? Without inquiry or explanation, she had coldly and abruptly cast me off; and it was terrible that one I loved so well should think evil or with scorn of me. What would honest old Sir Madoc's view of the matter be, and what the kind and noble-hearted Winifred's, who loved me as a sister, if they heard of this story, whatever it was?
Vengeance--swift, sudden, and sure--was what I panted for; and moments there were when I writhed under the laws that prevented me from discovering and beating to a jelly this fellow Guilfoyle, or even shooting him down like a mad dog, though I would gladly have risked my own life to punish him in the mode that was no longer approved of now in England; and I pictured to myself views of having him over in France, in the Bois de Boulogne, or on the level sands of Dunkirk, the spire of St. Eloi in the distance, the gray sky above us, the sea for a background, no sound in our ears but its chafing on the long strip of beach, and his villainous face covered by my levelled pistol at ten paces, or less--yea, even after I had let him have the first shot, by tossing or otherwise. And as these fierce thoughts burned within me, all the deeper and fiercer that they were futile and found no utterance, I glanced longingly at my sword, which hung on the wall, or handled my pistols with grim anticipative joy; and reflected on how many there are in this world who, in the wild sense of justice, or the longing for a just revenge on felons whom the laws protect, fear the police while they have no fear of God, even in this boasted age of civilisation; and I remembered a terrible duel à la mort in which I had once borne a part in Germany.
A July evening was closing in Altona, when I found myself in the garden of Rainville's Hotel, which overlooks the Elbe. The windows of the house, an edifice of quaint aspect, occupied successively in years past by General Dumourier and gossiping old Bourienne, were open, and lights and music, the din of many voices--Germans are always loud and noisy--and the odour of many cigars and meerschaums, came forth, to mingle with the fragrance of the summer flowers that decked the tea-garden, the trees of which were hung with garlands of coloured lanterns. A golden haze from the quarter where the sun had set enveloped all the lazy Elbe, and strings of orange-tinted lights showed here and there the gas-lamps of Hamburg reflected in its bosom.
In dark outline against that western flush were seen the masts and hulls of the countless vessels that covered the basin of the river and the Brandenburger Hafen. Waiters were hurrying about with coffee, ices, and confectionery, lager-beer in tankards, and cognac in crystal cruets; pretty Vierlander girls, in their grotesque costume, the bodice a mass of golden embroidery, were tripping about coyly, offering their bouquets for sale; and to the music of a fine German band, the dancing had begun on a prepared platform. There were mingling lovely Jewesses of half-Teutonic blood, covered with jewels; spruce clerks from the Admiralit-strasse, and stout citizens from the Neuer-wall; officers and soldiers from the Prussian garrison; girls of good style from the fashionable streets about the Alsterdamm, and others that were questionable from the quarter about the Grosse Theater Strasse.
I was seated in an arbour with a young Russian officer named Paulovitch Count Volhonski, who was travelling like myself, and whom I had met at the table-d'hôte of the Rolandsburg, in the Breitestrasse. As an Englishman, apt at all times to undervalue the Russian character, I was agreeably surprised to find that this young captain of the Imperial Guard could speak several European, and at least two of the dead, languages with equal facility. He was a good musician, sang well, and was moreover remarkably handsome, though his keen dark eyes and strongly marked brows, with a most decided aquiline nose, required all the softness that a mouth well curved and as delicately cut as that of a woman could be, to relieve them, and something of pride and hauteur, if not of sternness, that formed the normal expression of his face. His complexion was remarkably pure and clear, his hair was dark and shorn very short, and he had a handsome moustache, well pointed up. We had frequented several places of amusement together, and had agreed to travel in company so far as Berlin, and this was to be our last night in Altona. The waiter had barely placed our wine upon the table and poured it out, when there entered our arbour, and seated himself uninvited beside us, a great burly German officer in undress uniform, and who in a stentorian voice ordered a bottle of lager-beer, and lighting his huge meerschaum without a word or glance of courtesy or apology, surveyed us boldly with a cool defiant stare. This was so offensive, that Volhonski's usually pale face flushed crimson, and we instinctively looked at each other inquiringly.
The German next lay back in his seat, coughed loudly, expectorated in all directions in that abominable manner peculiar to his country, placed his heavy military boots with a thundering crash upon two vacant chairs, drank his beer, and threw down the metal flagon roughly on the table, eyeing us from time to time with a sneering glance that was alike insulting and unwarrantable. But this man, whom we afterwards learned to be a noted bully and duellist, Captain Ludwig Schwartz, of the Prussian 95th or Thuringians, evidently wished to provoke a quarrel with either or both of us, as some Prussian officers and Hamburg girls, who were watching his proceedings from an alley of the garden, seemed to think, and to enjoy the situation. But for their presence and mocking bearing, Volhonski and I would probably, for the sake of peace, have retired and gone elsewhere; however, their laughter and remarks rendered the intrusive insolence of their friend the more intolerable. It chanced that a little puff of wind blew the ashes of Volhonski's cigar all over the face and big brown beard of the German, who, while eyeing him fiercely, slowly extricated the pipe from his heavy dense moustache, and striking his clenched hand on the table so as to make everything thereon dance, he said, imperiously, "The Herr Graf will apologise?"
"For what?" asked Volhonski, haughtily.
"For what!--der Teufel!--do you ask for what?"
"Ja, Herr Captain."