The major rallied, turned around, and said:
"There's some mistake here, gentlemen. Won't you have the kindness to leave us alone?"
Slowly—very slowly—the crowd withdrew. It seemed to them that, in the nature of things, the lady ought to have it out with the major with pistols or knives for disturbing her, and that they, who were in all the sadness of disappointment at failure of a well-planned independent execution, ought to see the end of the whole affair. But a beseeching look from the lady herself finally cleared the cave, and the major exclaimed:
"Louise, what does this mean?"
"It means," said the lady, with most perfect composure, "that, thanks to a worthless father and a bad bringing-up by an incapable mother, Ernest has found his way into this country. I came to find him, and I found him in this hole, to which his affectionate father brought him to-day. It is about as well, I imagine, that I helped him to escape, seeing to what further kind attentions you had reserved him."
"Please don't be so icy, Louise," begged the major. "He attempted to rob and kill me, the young rascal; besides, I had not the faintest idea of who he was."
"Perhaps," said the lady, still very calm, "you will tell me from whom he inherited the virtues which prompted his peculiar actions towards you? His mother has always earned her livelihood honorably."
"Louise," said the major, with a humility which would have astonished his acquaintance, "won't you have the kindness to reserve your sarcasm until I am better able to bear it? You probably think I have no heart—I acknowledge I have thought as much myself—but something is making me feel very weak and tender just now."
The lady looked critically at him for a moment, and then burst into tears.
"Oh, God!" she sobbed, "what else is there in store for this poor, miserable, injured life of mine?"