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?”
