nt,"
said Van Diemen, shaking himself, as to prepare for the step into that
desert.

"Mr. Tinman has been most generous!" Annette protested tearfully.

"I won't say no: I think you are deceived and lend him your own
generosity," said Herbert. "Can you suppose it generous, that even in
the extremest case, he should speak of the matter to your father, and
talk of denouncing him? He did it."

"He was provoked."

"A gentleman is distinguished by his not allowing himself to be
provoked."

"I am engaged to him, and I cannot hear it said that he is not a
gentleman."

The first part of her sentence Annette uttered bravely; at the
conclusion she broke down. She wished Herbert to be aware of the truth,
that he might stay his attacks on Mr. Tinman; and she believed he had
only been guessing the circumstances in which her father was placed; but
the comparison between her two suitors forced itself on her now, when
the younger one spoke in a manner so self-contained, brief, and full of
feeling.

She had to leave the room weeping.

"Has your daughter engaged herself, sir?" said Herbert.

"Talk to me to-morrow; don't give us up if she has we were trapped, it's
my opinion," said Van Diemen. "There's the devil in that wine of--Mart
Tinman's. I feel it still, and in the morning it'll be worse. What can
she see in him? I must quit the country; carry her off. How he did it,
I don't know. It was that woman, the widow, the fellow's sister. She
talked till she piped her eye--talked about our lasting union. On my
soul, I believe I egged Netty on! I was in a mollified way with that
wine; all of a sudden the woman joins their hands! And I--a man of
spirit will despise me!--what I thought of was, 'now my secret's safe!'
You've sobered me, young sir. I see myself, if that's being sober. I
don't ask your opinion of me; I am a deserter, false to my colours,
a breaker of his oath. Only mark this: I was married, and a common
trooper, married to a handsome young woman, true as steel; but she was
handsome, and we were starvation poor, and she had to endure persecution
from an officer day by day. Bear that situation in your mind....
Providence dropped me a hundred pounds out of the sky. Properly
speaking, it popped up out of the earth, for I reaped it, you may say,
from a relative's grave. Rich and poor 's all right, if I'm rich and
you're poor; and you may be happy though you're poor; but where there
are many poor young women, lots of rich m