"Ah! that was a frightful episode in this new war; and yet believe me, my dear major, Coeurdefer has committed many such acts, and has always contrived to elude the hand of justice. Witness his vow to lay our colonel at his feet, where better men had lain. Liar that he is! Chateaunoir was the first gentleman in France! But true it is that, of the many who have lain at the feet of Jules, few have fallen in battle or fair combat." "You seem to have serious cause for disliking him," said Pringle. "Disliking!" reiterated Robertson, while his eyes sparkled and his pale face glowed with anger--"say abhorring him!" "You had your sword," said the officer of the 51st. "But it is the sword of a Mousquetaire," replied Robertson, sternly; "the chevalier ranks with a field officer." "True," said Pringle; "you must pardon my friend, who forgets surely what discipline inculcates. And the cause of this animosity?" "Is a dark and painful story," sighed Robertson, as he drained his green glass of Rhenish, and tossed it on the turf floor of the tent. "Let us hear it." "Before the rising of the clans in 1745," began Robertson, "I was a student at the Scottish College of Pontamousson, where I learned Latin and the classics under the tuition of old Father Innes. I had then a dear friend named Louis d'Herblay, a native of Remiremont, at the foot of Mount Vosge in Lorraine. Louis was handsome, brave, and courteous; an expert maker of verses; a tolerable player on the guitar, and a smart handler of his sword, which he had seldom occasion to use, for he was beloved by every one; a successful love affair with Mademoiselle Annette, a pretty and sprightly girl, had put him in the best of humours with all mankind. Annette was the only daughter of the old Marquis de Chateaunoir, father of the vicomte of that title, Great Maréchal of Lorraine and Bar-le-Duc. "Jules Coeurdefer, the spendthrift, gambler, and roué, was then, to our great regret, at college with us too, and having not yet come to his estates, his finances being far below his ambition and expenditure, to keep these equal he had betaken him to cards, dice, successful bets, to bullying some and cajoling others--and to every means his wild and wayward course of life permitted--a course which was the scandal of the good fathers of Pontamousson, and soon procured him the only favour he wished at their hands--expulsion.