"Where? Oh, with Harry Falconcourt? That is Miss Walsingham, my companion, adviser, censurer, and sheep-dog in general."
"I haven"t seen such a face in my life before," continued the young duke, with deepening earnestness; "and it is so wholly stripped of animal beauty that the beauty that bursts from every look and tone is so mysterious. That is a countenance graced by goodness, bravery, candor, devotion. There are faces graced by bright eyes, an arched nostril, a small mouth; a row of white teeth, or a waxen complexion. Which is the greater charm, do you think?"
"I did not know you were such a physiognomist," said Lady Juliana. "Pray read _me_, my lord."
He looked over the arch face with the plausible smile, the graceful features, the peach-like bloom, and a faint shadow crossed his brow.
"You would be sinking in the first storm, Lady Juliana."
"Cousin Julie has suddenly subsided," said Harry Falconcourt, looking up to the head of the table. "A minute since she was sparkling as champagne, now she is tame as lemonade. What do you suppose has occurred, Miss Walsingham? A mutiny between her subjects?"
"Extraordinary disposition of the Brand estates down in Surrey," said a voice opposite. "They all go to a woman as hideous as one of Macbeth"s witches, and the only scion of the race must either marry her or lose them."
"Is not that captain St. Udo Brand, of the Guards?" asked a gentleman in uniform.
"The same, major."
"Fine soldier, brave man. Did you see the gallant mention of him in the latest _American War Gazette_? Cut his way through three thousand of the enemy with his handful of Vermonters."
"A daring deed, major."
"Nothing when you know the vast nature of the man. He needed such scenes as are described in the sickening records of war to stir up the lion in him, and to bring out the gentleness too. He is the darling of his company--many a cheer, and I"ll not be afraid to say a blessing also has greeted him in his tender visits to his suffering boys."
"You knew him at home here?"
"Knew Captain Brand? Like a brother, sir. Sad dog, but a n.o.ble man--a n.o.ble man."
What bright intelligence was in the deep gray eyes which watched the officer"s face. But he did not see them, he was so absorbed by his subject.
A pause occurred in the gossip, for the band was having a rest of forty bars, and the flageolet was weak.
At the request of Lady Juliana, Margaret carried her careladen face to the piano and played a long time, what--she knew not, but gradually, from mechanical measure, the chords grew into solemn pulsations, and a vision rose up before her introverted eyes of a darkened battle-field, where the cannon belched forth its fiery death, the bugle sounded the retreat, the soldiers shouted, and cheered, and fell.
She saw the smoke and dust, the red blood pouring, the brave falling fast; and a shrouded moon, with three black stripes across its disk, was shining weirdly over a man lying on his broken sword, his head upon the mane of his pulseless horse, his dark, dim eyes raised supplicatingly.
And a skulker among the dead was bending over him with demoniac eagerness, and the dastardly dagger was plunged hilt-deep, and the man who had been called a "hero" sank beneath the feet of the dead--and the vision pa.s.sed away.
"Miss Walsingham." She turned her electric face--her hands fell from the ivory keys.
The gentlemen had entered the drawing-room, and the Duke of Piermont stood beside Lieutenant Falconcourt, waiting to be introduced.
"I have much pleasure in this introduction," said his grace, offering her an arm the instant that their hands met. "I would like much to talk with you, so honor me by promenading with me in the conservatory. In the first place, what was that extraordinary piece which you played?"
"I do not know--was I playing?"
His grace gazed at his companion in amazement. Doubt and terror still struggled for the mastery on her pallid features; the large, mystic eyes were fixed sadly upon vacancy. Miss Walsingham was quite unconscious that she was walking through the centre of the long suite with a man who was coveted from her by half the ladies there. "Is it possible that it was an impromptu?"
"I--pardon me, your grace--I was playing without thinking."
"Do you know what it suggested to me? A battle-field--the retreat of the conquered--darkness--treachery, and _murder_."
"My lord duke, what day of the month is this?"
She stopped in her sudden waking up to horror, and in her sudden eagerness she trembled as she stood.
"The first of September."
"_The first of September._ I shall not forget."
"You are certainly distressed by something, Miss Walsingham. Let me be of service to you?"
"You can be of service to me, your grace. You can allow me to retire, and make some apology for me to Lady Julie which will not alarm her."
The young duke bit his lip.
"You will return to me?" he asked.
"Not to-night."
She vanished through a dimly-lighted rotunda, leaving his grace gazing eagerly after her.
Crouching upon her knees by her chamber window, in the cold stream of moonlight, with clasping hands and yearning eyes, Margaret Walsingham questioned the silent heavens through the long hours for the meaning of the vision.
And yet the man had been her enemy!
CHAPTER IX.
A WOMAN"S VENGEANCE.
Through the dark fens, and the yielding mora.s.s, and the spicy sycamore grove, and the mossy walnut woods of Virginia, stole a gray-faced man; panting, hunger-smitten, weary; starting at every crash of the rotten underbrush, stopping ever with dilating eye to peer from the top of every hill into the valley beneath.
And a thin, tawny shadow glided before him with his nose upon the ground, and his eyes flaming ferociously--a blood-hound upon the trail.
Thoms had deserted from the army, and was out in search of Colonel Brand, and this dog which he held in chains was guiding him foot by foot along the secret path which St. Udo had traversed to perform his emba.s.sy.
How the old man brightened when a blue curl of distant smoke promised him a speedy sight of St. Udo"s watch-fire! How his limbs trembled and his haggard face blackened when the blood-hound wavered in his steady run, and sniffed about uneasily for a lost scent! How the wicked, tigerish eyes gleamed when the creature ran on again with eager haste and dripping fangs!
And the long brown fingers were ever straying toward the dagger in the bosom; and the cruel lips ever were sneering out their fell design; and the march seemed only a summer holiday to Thoms hastening to his colonel.
St. Udo Brand had been sent to Washington with dispatches, and was on his way South again to join his command.
Thus much had Thoms discovered, and he was sure of coming up with him in these pathless forests, if he trusted to the unerring instinct of his hideous guide.
It was a lovely day that first of September--so warm, and lambent, and sunny-hued that St. Udo, weary with nights and days of ceaseless exertion, ordered a halt in a cedar grove, and threw himself from his jaded horse to rest a while.