In a dark old wainscotted apartment, in the small arched chimney of which a coal fire was glowing cheerily, supper and wine were sullenly laid for Walter by a sleepy and half-frightened servant; but the first remained untouched and the last untasted, at least for a time. Removing his burgonet and gloves, he sat with his elbow on the table and his forehead on his hand, with his fingers writhed among his thick dark locks. He was again sunk in one of his gloomy reveries; but at times a smile of pleasure and animation unbent his haughty lip and lit up his handsome face like sunlight through a cloud; and it was evident he thought more of Lilian Napier's bright blue eyes, her innocence, and her fears, than the dangers and ignominy to which coming day would assuredly expose him. The mildness, modesty, and beauty of the young girl, with the touching artlessness of her manner, had awakened a nearer and more vivid interest in his heart, one to which it had hitherto been utterly a stranger. It was the dawn of passion; never before, he thought, had one so winning or so attractive crossed his path; he had found at last the well-known face that his fancy had conjured up in a thousand happy reveries, and he was predisposed to love it. Her tears and affliction for the last relative (save one) whom fate and war had left, had increased her natural attractions, and a keen sense of her unmerited humiliation, and the risk he ran for her, by knitting their names together, all tended to raise a glow in young Walter's solitary heart; for having no living thing in this wide world to cling to, it was peculiarly susceptible and open to impressions of kindness and generosity; now it expanded with a flush of happiness and delight to which since thoughtless childhood it had been a stranger; and in a burst of soldierlike enthusiasm, he uttered her name aloud, and drained the pewter flagon of Rhenish to the bottom.