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Bereaved

It was about ten months since we had last seen him:  but that time had sufficed to make an alteration of years in his appearance.  He had grown thinner; something of gloom and anxiety had taken the place of that cordial serenity which used to characterize his features.  His dark blue eyes, always penetrating, now gleamed with a sterner light from under his shaggy grey eyebrows.  It was not such a change as grief alone usually induces, and angrier passions seemed to have had their share in bringing it about.

We had not long resumed our drive, when the General began to talk, with his usual soldierly directness, of the bereavement, as he termed it, which he had sustained in the death of his beloved niece and ward; and he then broke out in a tone of intense bitterness and fury, inveighing against the “hellish arts” to which she had fallen a victim, and expressing, with more exasperation than piety, his wonder that Heaven should tolerate so monstrous an indulgence of the lusts and malignity of hell.

My father, who saw at once that something very extraordinary had befallen, asked him, if not too painful to him, to detail the circumstances which he thought justified the strong terms in which he expressed himself.

“I should tell you all with pleasure,” said the General, “but you would not believe me.”

“Why should I not?” he asked.

“Because,” he answered testily, “you believe in nothing but what consists with your own prejudices and illusions.  I remember when I was like you, but I have learned better.”

“Try me,” said my father; “I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose.  Besides which, I very well know that you generally require proof for what you believe, and am, therefore, very strongly predisposed to respect your conclusions.”

“You are right in supposing that I have not been led lightly into a belief in the marvelous—­for what I have experienced is marvelous—­and I have been forced by extraordinary evidence to credit that which ran counter, diametrically, to all my theories.  I have been made the dupe of a preternatural conspiracy.”

Notwithstanding his professions of confidence in the General’s penetration, I saw my father, at this point, glance at the General, with, as I thought, a marked suspicion of his sanity.

The General did not see it, luckily.  He was looking gloomily and curiously into the glades and vistas of the woods that were opening before us.

“You are going to the Ruins of Karnstein?” he said.  “Yes, it is a lucky coincidence; do you know I was going to ask you to bring me there to inspect them.  I have a special object in exploring.  There is a ruined chapel, ain’t there, with a great many tombs of that extinct family?”

“So there are—­highly interesting,” said my father.  “I hope you are thinking of claiming the title and estates?”