topic to interest ladies. Telfer has given the young gentleman a
well-merited lesson."

"Have they fought?" she asked, breathlessly, laying her hand on my arm,
and looking as white as a ghost.

"Yes, they have," said I; "and he fought, Miss Tressillian, for one who
gave him a very cold adieu last night."

Her head drooped, she trembled perceptibly, and the color rushed back to
her cheeks.

"Is he safe?" she asked, in the lowest of whispers.

"Quite," I answered, quickly, as De Tintiniac lounged up to us; and I
left my words, like a prudent diplomatist, to bear fruit as best they
might.

I wondered if she cared for him, or if it was merely a girl's natural
feeling for a man who had let himself be shot at, rather than hear a
light word spoken of her. But they were both so deuced proud, Heaven's
special intervention alone seemed likely to bring them together.

The Major didn't come home from Pipesandbeersbad till between two and
three that night, and he's told me since that being _un peu fou_ with
his self-willed and vehement passion, never went to bed at all, but sat
and walked about his room smoking, unable to sleep, in a frame of mind
that, when sane, a few months before, he would have pronounced spoony
and contemptible in the lowest degree. At eight he strode forth into the
park, brushing off the dew with his impatient steps, glad of the fresh
morning air upon his brow, which was as burning as our first headache
from "that cursed punch of Jones's," the day after our "first wine,"
which acute suffering any gentleman who ever tasted that delicious
_melange_ of rum and milk and lemons, will keenly recall among other
passed-away passages of his green youth.

Telfer strode on and on, over the molehills and through the ferns, down
this slope and up that, under the oaks, and lindens, and fir-trees
gleaming red beneath the October sun, with very little notion of where
he was going or what he was doing, a great stag-hound of Marc's
following at his heels. The path he took, without thinking, led him to
the top of a rock overhanging the Beersbad, where that historic stream
was but a few yards in width; and here Telfer, lying down with his head
against a plane-tree, struck a fusee and lighted a cigar--for a weed's a
pleasant companion in any stage of existence: if we're happy we smoke in
the fulness of our hearts, and build airy castles on each fragrant
cloud; and if we're unhappy, we smoke to console ourselves, and draw