come up to
Aix with my daughter, and wait there till you hear from me.
There 's a vacant 'troop' in the Horse Guards Blue this
morning. Rivers can tell you all.--Yours, C. D."

"What has happened, Rivers?" cried he, in intense anxiety. "Tell me at
once."

"Sir, it don't take long to tell. It did n't take very long to do. It
was three, or maybe half-past, this morning, the Captain comes to my
room, and says, 'Rivers, get up; be lively,' says he, 'dress yourself,
and go over to Jonesse, that fellow as has the shooting-gallery, give
him this note; he 'll just read it, and answer it at once; then run
over to Burton's and order a coupe, with two smart horses, to be here at
five; after that come back quickly, for I want a few things packed up.'
He made a sign to me that all was to be 'dark,' and so away I went, and
before three quarters of an hour was back here again. At five to the
minute the carriage came to the corner of the park, and we stepped out
quietly; and when we reached it, there was Jonesse inside, with a tidy
little box on his knee. 'Oh, is that it?' said I, for I knowed what that
box meant,--'is that it?'

"'Yes,' says the Captain, 'that's it; get up and make him drive briskly
to Boitsfort.' We were a bit late, I think, for the others was there
when we got up, and I heard them grumbling something about being behind
time. 'Egad,' says the Captain, 'you 'll find we 've come early enough
before we've done with you.' They were cruel words, sir, now that I
think how he tumbled him over stone dead in a moment."

"Who dead?"

"That fine, handsome young man, with the light-brown beard,--Hamilton,
they said his name was,--and a nicer fellow you could n't wish to see.
I 'll never forget him as he lay there stretched on the grass, and the
small blue hole in his forehead,--you 'd not believe it was ever half
the size of a bullet,--and his glove in his left hand, all so natural as
if he was alive. I believe I 'd have been standing there yet, looking at
him, when the Captain called me, and said, 'Rivers, take these stirrups
up a hole,'--for he had a saddle-horse all ready for him,--'and give
this note to Mr. Beecher; he 'll give you his orders about Klepper,'
says he, 'but mind you look to that hock.'"

"And Captain Hamilton was killed?" muttered Beecher, while he trembled
from head to foot at the terrible tidings.

"Killed--dead--he never moved a finger after he fell!"

"What did his friend do? Did h