"The queenly element was not quite wanting in the past, Sir," he said.
"Pshaw, Henri, the ephemeral fancy of the hour. Such chance entanglements as those do not rule a man's life."
"Perhaps not, Sir; but I know one of those chance entanglements made Lima unpleasantly warm for us; and if, after you winged Don Silvio, there hadn't been a pair of good horses waiting for us, you might never have seen the outside of Peru."
"And if a duel was dangerous in Lima, it would be ten times more dangerous in Cornwall, would it not, Henri?"
"Of course it would, Sir. But you are not thinking of anything like a duel here—you can't be so mad as to think of it."
"Certainly not. And now you can pack that small portmanteau, while I take a stretch. I sha'n't take off my clothes: a man who has to be up before six should never trifle with his feelings by making believe to go to bed."
CHAPTER XII.
"SHE STOOD UP IN BITTER CASE, WITH A PALE YET STEADY FACE."
The silence of night and slumber came down upon the world, shadow and darkness were folded round and about it. The ticking of the old eight-day clock in the hall, of the bracket clock in the corridor, and of half a dozen other time-pieces, conscientiously performing in empty rooms, took that solemn and sepulchral sound which all clocks, down to the humblest Dutchman, assume after midnight. Sleep, peace, and silence seemed to brood over all human and brute life at Mount Royal. Yet there were some who had no thought of sleep that night.