At last, out came my captain, with a haste and flurry of manner quite unusual. He did not, as was his constant custom, pass his hand along the mare's neck to feel her coat, nor did he mutter a single word of coaxing to her as he mounted. He flung himself with a jerk into the saddle, and, rapping my knuckles sharply with the gold knob of his whip, pettishly cried, "Let her go, sirrah!" and cantered away. I stood for some moments motionless, my mind in that strange state when the first thought of rebellion has entered, and the idea of reprisal has occurred. I was about to go away, when the drawing-room window, straight above me, was opened, and a lady stepped out upon the balcony. It was too dark to discern either her features or her dress; but a certain instinct told me it was Mrs. Mansergh. "Are you Captain De Courcy's boy?" said she, in a sweet and subdued voice. I replied in the affirmative, and she went on: "You know his quarters at the Royal Hospital? Well, go there at once, as speedily as you can, and give him this note." She hesitated for a second, as if uncertain what to say, and then added, "It is a note he dropped from his pocket by accident." "I'll do it, ma'am," said I, catching the letter and the half-crown, which she had half inserted in the envelope to give it weight. "You may trust me perfectly." Before the words were well uttered, she had retired, the window was closed, the curtain drawn, and, except the letter and the coin in my fingers, nothing remained to show that the whole had not been a trick of my foolish brain. My immediate impulse was to fulfil my mission; I even started off at full speed to do so. But as I turned the corner of the Square, the glare of a bright gas-lamp suggested the temptation of at least a look at my despatches; and what was my astonishment to find that on this note, which had been dropped by "accident" from the captain's pocket, the superscription was scarcely dry,--in the very act of catching, I had blotted the words! This, of course, was no affair of mine; but it evinced deception,--and deception at certain moments becomes a dangerous injury. There are times when the mind feels deceit to be an outrage. The stormy passions of the fury-driven mob, reckless and headstrong, show this; and the most terrible moment in all political convulsions is when the people feel, or even suspect, that they have been tricked. My frame of mind was exactly in that critical stage. A minute before, I was ready to yield any obedience, tender any service; and now, of a sudden,--without the slightest real cause, or from anything which could in the remotest way affect me,--I had become a rebel. Let the reader forgive the somewhat tedious analysis of a motive, since it comes from one who has long studied the science of moral chemistry, and made most of his experiments--as the rule directs--in "ignoble bodies."