"No; not dead—but I fear with little hope of life. He was desperately wounded soon after day-break this morning, and when I saw hi half an hour afterwards, he had been given over by the surgeons."
"Poor old Major," sighed Gertrude; "I felt when he was here the other day, that I could bare loved him almost as my owe father. How broken-hearted Miss Montgomerie must be at his loss."
A sneer of bitterness passed over the fine features of the American, as he replied with emphasis:
"Nay, dear Gertrude, year sympathies there are but ill bestowed. Miss Montgomerie's heart will scarcely sustain the injury you seem to apprehend."
"What mean you Ernest?" demanded Julia, with eagerness. "How is it that you judge thus harshly of her character. How, in short, do you pretend to enter into her most secret feelings, and yet deny all but a general knowledge of her? What can you possibly knew of her heart?"
"I merely draw my inferences from surmise," replied the Colonel, after a few moments of pause. "The fact it, I have the vanity to imagine myself a correct reader of character, and my reading of Miss Montgomery's has not been the happiest."
Julia's look betrayed incredulity. "There is evidently some mystery in all this," she rejoined; "but I will not seek to discover more than you choose at present to impart. Later I may hope to possess more of your confidence. One question more, however, and I have done. Have you seen her since your return to Detroit, and did she give you my letter?"
The Colonel made no answer, but produced from his pocket a note, which Julia at once recognized as her own.
"Then," said Gertrude, "there was not so much danger after all, in intrusting it. You seemed to be in a sad way, when you first heard that it had been given to her."
"I would have pledged myself on its safe deliverance," added her sister, "for the promise was too solemnly given, to be broken."