to whose inhuman cruelty even the son of my brother has, by some strange fatality of coincidence, so recently fallen a second sacrifice.  Curses, curses on him,” he pursued, with frightful vehemence, half rising as he spoke, and holding forth his right arm in a menacing attitude; “but the hour of retribution is at hand, and revenge, the exclusive passion of the gods, shall at length be mine.  In no other country in the world—­under no other circumstances than the present—­could I have so secured it.

“What were the charges preferred against me?” he continued, with a violence that almost petrified the unhappy girl.  “Hear them, and judge whether I have not cause for the inextinguishable hate that rankles at my heart.  Every trifling disobedience of orders—­every partial neglect of duty that could be raked up—­was tortured into a specific charge; and, as I have already admitted I had latterly transgressed not a little in this respect, these were numerous enough.  Yet they were but preparatory to others of greater magnitude.  Next succeeded one that referred to the message I had given, and countermanded, to the sergeant of my company, when in the impatience of my disappointment I had desired him to tell the colonel I would see the service d—­d rather than inconvenience myself at that moment for it.  This was unsupported by other evidence, however, and therefore failed in the proof.  But the web was too closely woven around to admit of my escaping.—­Will you, can you believe any thing half so atrocious, as that your father should have called on this same man not only to prove the violent and insubordinate language I had used in reference to the commanding officer in my own rooms, but also to substantiate a charge of cowardice, grounded on the unwillingness I had expressed to accompany the expedition, and the extraordinary trepidation I had evinced, while preparing for the duty, manifested, as it was stated to be, by the various errors he had rectified in my equipment with his own hand?  Yes, even this pitiful charge was one of the many preferred; but the severest was that which he had the unblushing effrontery to make the subject of public investigation, rather than of private redress—­the blow I had struck him in his own apartments.  And who was his witness in this monstrous charge?—­your mother, Clara.  Yea, I stood as a criminal in her presence; and yet she came forward to tender an evidence that was to consign me to a disgraceful sentence.  My vile prosecutor had, moreover, the encouragement, the sanction of his colonel throughout, and by him he was upheld in every contemptible charge his ingenuity could devise.  Do you not anticipate the result?—­I was found guilty, and dismissed the service.