'Poor Arthur! your gold and silver, as yet, the pay of a Scottish cuirassier; your worldly goods in France, the dust of a day's march. Yet would I wed you,' she added, while her tears fell fast and hot; 'but I have others than myself, to consult, others who would rather see me in my grave than the wife of soldier of fortune. Our ranks are unequal; and I--with all your present love--would wed but future misery.' 'Oh! Nicola, and have you no trust in me? What mean you by present love, and future misery?' 'Would you rejoin the proud, fiery, and haughty Garde de Corps Ecossais, with a French soubrette as your bride?' 'No--we would quit France.' 'Does not this admission show there is a shame to shun?' 'A shame, Nicola!' I stammered. 'Yes--and what of the Countess's promises to you--are they as yet fulfilled?' 'Alas! no.' 'And your despatches for M. le Chevalier Hepburn; are they as yet delivered?' 'True--true; but the dread of losing you renders me desperate, and blind to everything.' 'Enough, dear Arthur--let us talk of this no more.' 'Yet, Nicola, for you I would risk any danger; for I love you, as I have never loved any woman, since I buried my poor mother, who sleeps far away from me, in the old churchyard at Glenkens.' As if she dreaded her own resolution, Nicola whipped up her horse, and muffling her face, and, as I thought, her sobs, in her hood, rode on. I followed, and thus we sorrowfully left the gates and ramparts of St. Michel behind us. I informed her of the risk we ran--I at least--as Nanci was full of the troops of Duke Charles, and of Wolfgang Pappenheim, his intended son-in-law. She expressed joy to hear that the brave old Duke was in possession of his hereditary home, which, as she was a Lorrainer, was only natural and proper; but she shuddered at the name of young Pappenheim, who, to all his father's brilliant courage, united the cunning of the fox with the pitiless ferocity of the tiger. CHAPTER XLII. VAUDEMONT.