Colonel Halkett mentioned a report that Nevil had received a slight
thigh-wound of small importance. At any rate, something was the matter
with him, and it was naturally imagined that he would have double cause
to write home; and still more so for the reason, his uncle
confessed, that he had foreseen the folly of a war conducted by milky
cotton-spinners and their adjuncts, in partnership with a throned
gambler, who had won his stake, and now snapped his fingers at
them. Everard expected, he had prepared himself for, the young naval
politician's crow, and he meant to admit frankly that he had been wrong
in wishing to fight anybody without having first crushed the cotton
faction. But Nevil continued silent.

'Dead in hospital or a Turk hotel!' sighed Everard; 'and no more to the
scoundrels over there than a body to be shovelled into slack lime.'

Rosamund Culling was the only witness of his remarkable betrayal of
grief.

CHAPTER V. RENEE

At last, one morning, arrived a letter from a French gentleman signing
himself Comte Cresnes de Croisnel, in which Everard was informed that
his nephew had accompanied the son of the writer, Captain de Croisnel,
on board an Austrian boat out of the East, and was lying in Venice under
a return-attack of fever,--not, the count stated pointedly, in the hands
of an Italian physician. He had brought his own with him to meet his
son, who was likewise disabled.

Everard was assured by M. de Croisnel that every attention and
affectionate care were being rendered to his gallant and adored
nephew--'vrai type de tout ce qu'il y a de noble et de chevaleresque
dans la vieille Angleterre'--from a family bound to him by the tenderest
obligations, personal and national; one as dear to every member of it as
the brother, the son, they welcomed with thankful hearts to the Divine
interposition restoring him to them. In conclusion, the count proposed
something like the embrace of a fraternal friendship should Everard
think fit to act upon the spontaneous sentiments of a loving relative,
and join them in Venice to watch over his nephew's recovery. Already
M. Nevil was stronger. The gondola was a medicine in itself, the count
said.

Everard knitted his mouth to intensify a peculiar subdued form of
laughter through the nose, in hopeless ridicule of a Frenchman's notions
of an Englishman's occupations--presumed across Channel to allow of his
breaking loose from shooting engagements at a minute's no