"HE WAS STOPPED AT THE ENTRANCE BY A GENDARME."
"Au revoir, Monsieur!"
In a moment or two Jack heard the stranger go out, and the concierge came stumbling up with a light. Jack took it from him, and gazed upon the face of Minnie Denton. Beautiful she looked, even in death. The pain and agony of the last struggle had gone and left the features placid, as one in peaceful sleep.
Years ago he had loved her deeply, tenderly, and she had returned his love. Then they had quarrelled. The breach between them had widened, and in a fit of desperation he enlisted. Europe was at the time one great battlefield, and Jack was immediately sent on active service. So he had altogether lost sight of his old love.
He had been with Wellington in the Peninsula, and after serving with a bravery which had gained him the eulogiums of his general, had been drafted with his regiment to Brussels just prior to the time when Napoleon escaped from Elba.
There had not been much time to think of love while these stirring events were transpiring, but the news of his old sweetheart's death, in the very city in which he was stationed, had touched a tender chord.
Jack mused mournfully upon the past as he looked down on the still, silent face. She had been fickle; yet had not he? What would their fate have been had they not quarrelled? Would it have been widely different? Perchance she would have been a happy mother; he, a happy father; or they might have been utterly miserable.
Whatever Fate might or might not have had in store for them in other circumstances, it was galling to think that her last thoughts had been of this stranger—a Frenchman and an enemy.
But was it true? There could, alas! be little doubt of it, for had not the Frenchman left with him the best—rather he would say, the worst—of all testimony: her own letter? What stronger evidence of her fickleness could there be than that?