heard when it was being discussed. At any rate,
it's known; and the thing to do is to meet it."

"I'm off. I'll not stop a day. I'd rather live on the Continent," said
Van Diemen, shaking himself, as to prepare for the step into that desert.

"Mr. Tinman has been most generous!" Annette protested tearfully.

"I won't say no: I think you are deceived and lend him your own
generosity," said Herbert. "Can you suppose it generous, that even in the
extremest case, he should speak of the matter to your father, and talk of
denouncing him? He did it."

"He was provoked."

"A gentleman is distinguished by his not allowing himself to be
provoked."

"I am engaged to him, and I cannot hear it said that he is not a
gentleman."

The first part of her sentence Annette uttered bravely; at the conclusion
she broke down. She wished Herbert to be aware of the truth, that he
might stay his attacks on Mr. Tinman; and she believed he had only been
guessing the circumstances in which her father was placed; but the
comparison between her two suitors forced itself on her now, when the
younger one spoke in a manner so self-contained, brief, and full of
feeling.

She had to leave the room weeping.

"Has your daughter engaged herself, sir?" said Herbert.

"Talk to me to-morrow; don't give us up if she has we were trapped, it's
my opinion," said Van Diemen. "There's the devil in that wine of--Mart
Tinman's. I feel it still, and in the morning it'll be worse. What can
she see in him? I must quit the country; carry her off. How he did it, I
don't know. It was that woman, the widow, the fellow's sister. She talked
till she piped her eye--talked about our lasting union. On my soul, I
believe I egged Netty on! I was in a mollified way with that wine; all of
a sudden the woman joins their hands! And I--a man of spirit will despise
me!--what I thought of was, 'now my secret's safe!' You've sobered me,
young sir. I see myself, if that's being sober. I don't ask your opinion
of me; I am a deserter, false to my colours, a breaker of his oath. Only
mark this: I was married, and a common trooper, married to a handsome
young woman, true as steel; but she was handsome, and we were starvation
poor, and she had to endure persecution from an officer day by day. Bear
that situation in your mind. . . . Providence dropped me a hundred pounds
out of the sky. Properly speaking, it popped up out of the earth, for I
reaped it, you may say, from a relative's g