“My dear Thorpe,” eagerly interrupted the baronet, “the Count deplored the necessity, or rather the action, so deeply, as never, I do believe, to have succeeded in reasoning the painful recollection away. It clung to him like a superstition, in fact—for you must notice, he had sacrificed, as it were, his hereditary honour to save me—a thing perhaps more fanciful, less dependent on personal character, and more on externals and reputation, than with us. Yet so delicate was his feeling, and his wish to conceal it from me—that it was only by further acquaintance with his character I could observe it—or understand the restless tread on that poop at midnight—the frequent abstraction and sudden fitfulness of his conduct towards the officers who had first suggested his conduct—mixed with a singular regard towards myself—notwithstanding, nay, as if _because_ of all. Nothing, as he afterwards confessed to me, almost with tears, could have induced it, except his recognition in me of an officer and a gentleman, an unfortunate stranger, whose country had been gratuitously opposed and defeated by French aid—when those of his own race were about to murder him ignominiously. His sword, however, he said, should have been trusted to alone, at all hazards; or, as he afterwards recollected, the frigate’s guns might have been turned toward the neighbouring town; indeed, next morning he had even sent to acknowledge the deception, with a refusal to give me up, and an offer of personal satisfaction to the American in command. Still, not only to have destroyed for ever the prestige of French honour, with all its securities, but to have falsely pledged the escutcheon of his own family, never before soiled, was a thought which enraged him against himself, against others, almost beyond control. It was useless to reason with my friend; it was perfectly hopeless to attempt consoling him; in truth, during the quiet of our voyage, a kind of insanity seemed to possess him, the only lucid intervals in which were our conversations on subjects as remote as possible from that. I think he secretly abhorred the manners of the colonials, like the American alliance, and saw a degree of retribution in the terrible defeat by Lord Rodney. I myself have reason to recollect America with mingled feelings of horror and satisfaction”—he glanced for a moment towards his wife, whose placid features betrayed no consciousness of the allusion to her first conjugal letters—“so that, my dear Thorpe, you may easily believe I could not help sympathising with him!” “But surely, Sir Godfrey,” continued the graduate, with very logical insensibility, “you must be of opinion that this country, inclined, as it now seems, to copy England, will be”— “Like the Count de Charlemont and his friends, I should think, with their English riding-coats and bulldogs!” involuntarily broke in Charles Willoughby, with a laugh: he had been listening very intently; but the laugh ceased at his father’s sudden look.