"Not the cause of a creeping little toad like that. He takes Austrian money."

“I do not speak of him. I speak of the Sardinian cause against the Austrian. I am an Italian at heart.”

"I doubt that I am also," said Tom Silcote; "but you cannot sympathize with the miserable spawn which both sides use, and which both sides despise. Now let me sleep; I am very tired with marching and fighting, and I want rest."

The little Zuckmantel doctor, who makes his first and last appearance here, had given James orders that the Colonel's arm must be dressed again in the middle of the night. He added, also, that he entirely forgave the Colonel for swearing at and denouncing him. He was an Englishman, as was also Monsieur, and the English always swore and denounced when poorly.

James lay beside his father on the floor, and not having slept, arose between twelve and one, and prepared to awaken him. He looked at him for some time before he woke him, and thought, as an artist, what a wonderfully handsome man he was. The curls which he remembered on the night when he had crept from his bed to follow the poachers were but slightly grizzled as yet; many younger men might have exchanged locks with Tom Silcote without disadvantage. And in sleep, in quiescence, while passion was dead, the face was extremely beautiful.

So the poor fellow slept, watched by his own son; father and son alike being utterly unconscious of their relationship. Around the house, where he lay, artillery rumbled, shaking the house, and muttered away into silence eastward; squadrons of cavalry passed trampling; battalions of infantry passed with a steady, measured rustling, broken sometimes by a sharply-given word of command. The Austrian army, already beaten, was moving eastward, 200,000 strong; and there was scarcely a man among them all who had so little business there as had Colonel Silcote.

Of all the Silcotes he had wasted his life the most perversely, the most persistently. His fate should have been, by the ordinary laws of poetical justice, to die alone, un

aided, uncared for, unwept. Yet his son was watching him with tenderness, and only disputing for his right to do so with the poor Princess, whom he had ruined. Is he the first instance of by far the least meritorious member of a family being the best beloved after all his misdoings?

The night was hot, and he lay with his great chest bare, heaving up and down with the regular breathing of sleep. His face was very calm, and James doubted very much if he did wisely in awakening him; but, after a time, looking at his face, he took his right arm, the unwounded one, and felt his pulse.

Colonel Silcote, without moving, quietly opened his eyes, and spoke.

None of the whole of them left but you? They were all here just now. I was marching into Exeter, and overtook a weary girl under the hedgerows; and then I was at Dunstegan, and cut in before Tullygoram, and danced with a beautiful girl in spite of him. And the Devonshire girl and the girl of Dunstegan were one and the same, and had the same eyes. And I awoke, and found them looking at me out of your head. Boy, I am going to die."

"Nonsense, Colonel," said James; "your pulse is quiet : you will be quite well to-morrow. You are not going to die."

"Not here. Not in this bed. No! By heavens, you are right there, old boy! But the end of it all is very near; and upon my word and honour, I cannot see very particularly why it should not be."

"You have many years of useful and honourable life before you, sir, I hope," said James.

"I don't hope anything of the kind," said Tom Silcote. "I have so many years of useless and dishonourable life behind me, that I begin to think that it will be better to close my account against the higher powers as soon as possible. If I were to mortgage my future career, with good behaviour as interest, I never could pay it. The accumulation of interest would destroy the capital in a very short time. I tell you I can't behave well. If I lived, which I am not going to do, I might gain in time the respectable vices of old age. But it would take so long;

I am so dreadfully young. You may depend that a fellow like me is much better out of this world than in it."

"I cannot see that, sir," said James.

"God forbid that you should. You are going to dress my arm; do so, and listen to what I say. You have a clear head and a good memory. After I am dead, I wish you to tell my father these things. I shall march to-morrow.” James promised to remember them.

"Nineteen years ago I was honourably married to a girl I met in Devonshire. The particulars of that marriage my aunt, the Princess, has in a despatch-box, which I have given into her possession.

"I have great reason to fear that my father has been sadly abused about the conduct of his late wife, poor Algy's mother. If he can get hold of the Princess, I believe that she is quite prepared to tell him everything. I fear that she and a man called Kriegsthurm have used him very sadly; but he must be tender with her. He was fond of me once; and you must tell him, now that I.am dead and gone, and will trouble him no more, that he must be tender with her. Out of my grave I shall insist on that. My aunt is in many respects the best of us all. I insist that my aunt must be kindly used. Again, I am sure that Miss Raylock knows now the whole of this miserable complication from one end to the other. If she does not, Kriegsthurm does. Give me my havre-sack : it is hanging on the foot of the bed.”

James did so.

"This Kriegsthurm is a very good fellow, but a most consumed rascal. Here are papers which commit him to the Austrian Government, for he has been Italianizing, the scoundrel, the moment he saw there was a chance of our being beaten. Put these papers in the hands of my father, and he will bring him to book with them. My father was at one time one of the first and shrewdest lawyers in England. He is a perfect match for Kriegsthurm.

66

You must also give my love to my father, and tell him that I am sorry to have been so bad a son to him. I would not add that I could not help it, or that he might have been a better father to me. I wish him to discover

whether my wife is alive or not-his sister has the particulars of the marriage-and to pension her. I had no family by her. You are hurting me."

"I am very sorry, sir," said James; "I am but a clumsy nurse."

"I had no family by her, at least as far as I know. I should wish him to find her out and pension is alive. I behaved very ill to her, I fear.

done?"

her, if she Have you

"I have done now, sir," replied James. "You had better sleep."

"I have been sleeping; I cannot sleep again. I shall sleep long and soundly in a few days. Sit beside me, and talk to me."

CHAPTER LIV.

THE ENEMY ADVANCES.

A FRENCH officer, riding up to the first of the Silcote carriages took off his hat and bowed low.

"I really doubt if it is safe for Monsieur to advance further," he said. "Monsieur can of course please himself, but, until we have gained another victory, I would wish to point out to Monsieur that advance is, to say the least, dangerous. The enemy were here the day before yesterday. Some of them are here still."

He pointed to a few stark heaps which were lying in the summer grass, in the field to the left of the road. Silcote understood him at once.

"I thank you for your politeness, sir: we will go no further. Young ladies," he continued, " dismount, and go into that house opposite: I will be with you directly."

Miss Lee and Mrs. Thomas Silcote did so at once. Mrs. Thomas knew from old experience that she was in the presence of death, although she had not actually made out the Austrian corpses. Miss Lee saw a look in her face

which made her silent, and which.caused her to follow. The two women silently left the carriage, politely handed out by the French officer, and went towards the house. The French officer remained. Silcote and Arthur leaned over the side of their carriage talking to him, while Boginsky came up from the second carriage, and stood beside the French officer's horse.

"Arthur," said Silcote, "there is some Moselle somewhere, and I am thirsty; get some. Monsieur, we are much indebted to you. I perceive that we are passing into the real regions of war. Has there been, then, an actual cataclysm?"

Boginsky and Arthur laughed at his pedantry. Seeing that Silcote laughed himself, the French officer, drinking his glass of Moselle, laughed also.

"We heard that there had been an engagement," said Silcote, "but we were not aware how near our British audacity had brought us to it. Are those blue and white heaps, lying there on the grass, actually Austrian corpses?" "They are such, Monsieur, a small instalment."

“What is the name of this place," asked Silcote; "and what are the details of the engagement?"

"This place is Genestrello. Beyond you see the heights and the village of Montebello. You have never heard of Montebello. No; nor did any one until yesterday. Yet Montebello will live in history beside Lodi and Arcola. We carried the heights of Montebello yesterday. It was only the first of a great series of victories. We have already demoralized the Austrians. The rest is quite easy."

"Ho!" said Silcote; "then it is all over. Arthur, give this gentleman another glass of Moselle. Can you give me any further details of this action of yesterday, my dear sir?"

"With the greatest pleasure," replied the French officer. "Here at Genestrello the Sardinian light horse, in command of Colonel Count Frangipanni, met the Austrian cavalry, under command of Colonel Silcote,-a compatriot of yours, by the way. Each regiment was beaten in turn, and the Austrian Colonel Silcote was desperately wounded by the Sardinian Colonel Frangipanni; after which the Austrians retreated."