yelled as
I drove my head into his stomach. He threw his arm round my neck, and
holding me with one hand he struck me with the other. I buried my
teeth in his arm, and he shouted with pain. "Call him off, Rufton!" he
screamed.

"Call him off, man! He's worrying me!" They dragged me away from him.
Can I ever forget it?--the laughter, the cheering, the congratulations!
Even my enemy bore me no ill-will, for he shook me by the hand. For my
part I embraced him on each cheek. Five years afterward I learned from
Lord Rufton that my noble bearing upon that evening was still fresh in
the memory of my English friends.

It is not, however, of my own exploits in sport that I wish to speak to
you to-night, but it is of the Lady Jane Dacre and the strange adventure
of which she was the cause. Lady Jane Dacre was Lord Rufton's sister and
the lady of his household. I fear that until I came it was lonely for
her, since she was a beautiful and refined woman with nothing in common
with those who were about her. Indeed, this might be said of many
women in the England of those days, for the men were rude and rough and
coarse, with boorish habits and few accomplishments, while the women
were the most lovely and tender that I have ever known. We became great
friends, the Lady Jane and I, for it was not possible for me to drink
three bottles of port after dinner like those Devonshire gentlemen, and
so I would seek refuge in her drawing-room, where evening after evening
she would play the harpsichord and I would sing the songs of my own
land. In those peaceful moments I would find a refuge from the misery
which filled me, when I reflected that my regiment was left in the front
of the enemy without the chief whom they had learned to love and to
follow.

Indeed, I could have torn my hair when I read in the English papers of
the fine fighting which was going on in Portugal and on the frontiers of
Spain, all of which I had missed through my misfortune in falling into
the hands of Milord Wellington.

From what I have told you of the Lady Jane you will have guessed what
occurred, my friends. Etienne Gerard is thrown into the company of a
young and beautiful woman. What must it mean for him? What must it mean
for her? It was not for me, the guest, the captive, to make love to the
sister of my host. But I was reserved.

I was discreet. I tried to curb my own emotions and to discourage hers.
For my own part I fear that I betrayed myself, for the