is dead but yourself! Dismiss that idea from your mind! I am not dead, since we have the pleasure of again meeting in the flesh. He is not dead! No! it was Colonel Mortimer Darke whom you fought to-night. This is his horse which I borrowed to take a short ride. I have been captured, but he is neither dead nor captured, and you will doubtless receive some friendly message from him soon.”
Under the mocking accents and the satirical glance, it was easy to read profound hatred. The speaker could not hide that. At that moment she resembled a tigress about to spring.
Mohun had listened with absorbing attention as his companion spoke; but, as on the first occasion, he speedily suppressed his agitation. His face was now as cold and unmoved as though moulded of bronze.
“So be it, madam,” he said; “I will respond as I best can to such message as he may send me. For yourself, you know me well, and, I am glad to see, indulge no apprehensions. The past is dead; let it sleep. You think this interview is painful to me. You deceive yourself, madam; I would not exchange it for all the wealth of two hemispheres.”
And calling an officer, he said:—
“You will conduct this lady to General Stuart, reporting the circumstances attending her capture.”
Mohun made a ceremonious bow to the prisoner as he spoke, saluted me in the same manner, and mounting his horse, rode back at the head of his column.
The prisoner, escorted by the young officer, and still riding her fine horse, had already disappeared in the darkness.
V. — STUART.
An hour afterward, I had delivered my message to Mordaunt, and was returning by the road over Fleetwood Hill, thinking of the singular dialogue between Mohun and the gray woman.
What had these worthies meant by their mysterious allusions? How had Mohun found himself face to face on this stormy night, with two human beings whom he thought dead?
These questions puzzled me for half an hour; then I gave up the mystery,
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