All looked wet and dreary, dull and mournful, and as the December sun went down beyond the dark and purple hills where Salamanca lies, the pipers of the 92nd played "Lochaber no more," their evening retreat, and this air, so sad, so slow and wailing, as they marched along the old Moorish wall, affected Quentin so deeply that he covered his face with his hands and wept. What would that fine old soldier, courtier, and cavalier, the mirror of old-fashioned courage and honour, Lord Rohallion, say or think, when he heard of his disgrace? What would Lady Winifred--what the old quartermaster, John Girvan? and what would the emotions of Flora Warrender be? Whether the charges against him were false or true--proved or refuted--she at least would be lost to him for ever, for his career was closed ere it was well begun, and he felt that no other road in life lay open to him. He felt too, instinctively, that Baltasar de Saldos and his sister Donna Isidora were in some manner the secret source of the present evil turn in his fortune; but how or in what fashion he was yet to learn. The phrase, that the charges involved death or such other punishment as a court-martial might award, was ever before him. The vagueness of the latter recourse, rather than the terror of the first, cut him to the heart, as all the penalties inflicted by such a court are severe and disgraceful. Cosmo, he heard, had suggested that he should be handed over to the tender mercies of the Spanish civil authorities; but Sir John Hope insisted that the charges were such as only a military court could take cognizance of; so what on earth were they? Unconscious alike of a mistake or crime, oh, how he longed for the time of trial! As the darkness of the sombre eve crept on, its gloom was singularly in unison with his own sombre thoughts. Bright visions had faded away and airy bubbles burst. Chateaux en Espagne were no longer tenable now! How many gorgeous day-dreams of glory and honour, of rank and fame, of position in society attained by worth and merit, were now dissolved in air! His naturally warm, generous, and kindly heart had become seared, callous, and misanthropical. Experience and the world had tried their worst upon him, and thus, for a time, a mere boy in years became a bitter-hearted man, for a day dawn of a glorious ambition seemed to be sinking prematurely into a black and stormy night.