m for my friend, I should have bestowed a whole, and not
a half confidence upon him. He had had the hypocrisy to pretend to them
he had violated no trust, since he had honourably espoused a lady whom
I had introduced to him as a cousin, and in whom I appeared to have no
other interest than that of relationship. Not, they said, that they
believed he actually did entertain that impression; but still the
excuse was too plausible, and had been too well studied by my cunning
rival, to be openly refuted. As for the mere fact of his supplanting
me, they thought it an excellent thing,--a ruse d'amour for which they
never would have given him credit; and although they admitted it was
provoking enough to be ousted out of one's mistress in that cool sort
of way, still I should not so far have forgotten myself as to have
struck him while he was unarmed, when it was so easy to have otherwise
fastened an insult on him. Such," bitterly pursued Wacousta, "was the
consolation I received from men, who, a few short weeks before, had
been sedulous to gain and cultivate my friendship,--but even this was
only vouchsafed antecedent to my trial. When the sentence was
promulgated, announcing my dismissal from the service, every back was
turned upon me, as though I had been found guilty of some dishonourable
action or some disgraceful crime; and, on the evening of the same day,
when I threw from me for ever an uniform that I now loathed from my
inmost soul, there was not one among those who had often banqueted at
my expense, who had the humanity to come to me and say, 'Sir Reginald
Morton, farewell.'

"What agonies of mind I endured,--what burning tears I nightly shed
upon a pillow I was destined to press in freezing loneliness,--what
hours of solitude I passed, far from the haunts of my fellow-men, and
forming plans of vengeance,--it would take much longer time to relate
than I have actually bestowed on my unhappy history. To comprehend
their extent and force, you must understand the heart of fire in which
the deep sense of injury had taken root; but the night wears away, and
briefly told must be the remainder of my tale. The rebellion of
forty-five saw me in arms in the Scottish ranks; and, in one instance,
opposed to the regiment from which I had been so ignominiously
expelled. Never did revenge glow like a living fire in the heart of man
as it did in mine; for the effect of my long brooding in solitude had
been to inspire me with a detestati