"Excuse me, dear sir," interrupted Audley, "if I beg that you will cease to taunt me on this painful subject. The tenor of the letter she wrote to me--the letter which you found on my desk, and which in all fairness you should not have read--a Lieutenant of the Line not being exactly a schoolboy--sufficiently evinced that we were on terms of affection and intimacy. I knew not then who she was, or who her people were. I had saved her life, as the General knows, at considerable peril, and so there grew a tender tie between us; but all shall be ended now," he continued in a tone of emotion. "I see that it must be so, sir. I see also the necessity for not compromising your just title to the rank and place you hold by attaching myself in any way to the fortunes of the Devereaux. So I implore you to let the matter cease, or I shall quit the room--yes, even the house itself, so surely as I shall ere long quit England, perhaps never to return!" "I thank you for this promise, Audley," said Downie emphatically; "and when once with your regiment, you shall find your allowance most amply increased." "For that I thank you, sir," said Audley, sighing. "I am richer now than when you were in the Hussars." "And out of that wealth, Downie--I beg pardon, I mean my Lord Lamorna--I trust you will do something handsome now for poor Dick's widow and orphan?" blundered the General. "Widow and orphan!" repeated Downie, with growing anger. "Well, widow in one sense." "In what sense?" "A widow of the heart," persisted Trecarrel, reddening to the roots of his grizzled hair. "She and her pretty daughter have suffered a fearful stroke of fortune--and even poverty may not be the most severe trial before them." "I shall settle a small sum on the mother, perhaps," said Downie, reluctantly; "and get the girl, if you wish it, a situation as companion at a distance from this." "Companion? That is a kind of upper servant who must wash the spaniel, and feed the parrot," said the General, testily; "supervise the maid that dresses her mistress's hair, read novels aloud, and sermons on Sunday; write invitations, and answer them; pay all bills, and stand all manner of vapours and ill-humours, for thirty pounds per annum and a _quiet home_! Come, come, Downie, d--n it," added Trecarrel, "you might do something more handsome than that for a daughter of Richard Trevelyan."