ilan," said
Frank, bitterly.

"Then why go there?--why hasten to certain ruin?"

"You would say, why not desert?----why not forfeit my honor and my
oath? Because I am a gentleman, sir; and if the explanation be not
intelligible, so much the worse for you."

"I have left him in the chapel," said Norwood to D'Esmonde, a few
minutes after this conversation; "he is kneeling beside the corpse, and
praying. There is nothing to be done with him. It is but time lost to
attempt it."

"So much the worse for _him,_" said D'Esmonde, significantly repeating
the words that Norwood related, while he hastily left the spot and
walked towards the high-road, where now an Austrian picket was standing
beside the horses.

"This is your warrant, sir," said D'Esmonde to the officer, handing him
a paper; "You 'll find the person you seek for in the chapel yonder."

The officer saluted in reply, and ordered his men to mount; while
D'Esmonde, passing into a thick part of the copse, was out of sight in a
moment.

CHAPTER XVI. PETER DALTON ON POLITICS, LAW, AND SOCIALITIES.

We have seen Baden in the dark winter of its discontent--in the
spring-time of its promise--and now we come back to it once more, in the
fall blaze of its noonday splendor. It was the height of the season!
And what a world of dissipation does that phrase embody! What reckless
extravagance, what thoughtless profusion, what systematic vice glossed
over by the lacquer of polished breeding, what beauty which lacks but
innocence to be almost divine! All the attractions of a lovely country,
all the blandishments of wealth, the aids of music and painting, the
odor of flowers, the songs of birds,--all pressed into the service of
voluptuous dissipation, and made to throw a false lustre over a scene
where vice alone predominates.

It was the camp of pleasure, to which all rallied who loved to fight
beneath that banner. And there they were, a mingled host of princes,
ministers, and generals. The spoiled children of fashion, the reckless
adventurer, the bankrupt speculator, the nattered beauty in all the
pride of her loveliness, the tarnished virtue in all the effrontery of
conquest! Strange and incongruous elements of good and evil,--of
all that is honored in heroism, and all that men shrink from with
shame,--there they were met as equals.

As if by some conventional relaxation of all the habits which rule
society, men admitted to their intimacy here those they would ha