My suspense became too great to bear; I dashed madly forward.  As I neared the house, the whole approach was crowded with carriages and horsemen.  At the foot of the large flight of steps stood the black and mournful hearse, its plumes nodding in the breeze, and, as the sounds without sank into sobs of bitterness and woe, the black pall of a coffin, borne on men’s shoulders, appeared at the door, and an old man, a life-long friend of my uncle, across whose features a struggle for self-mastery was playing, held out his hand to enforce silence.  I sprang toward him, choked by agony.  He threw his arms around me, and muttering the words, “Poor Godfrey!” pointed to the coffin.

Mine was a desolate hearth.  In respect to my uncle’s last wishes, I sold out of the army and settled down to a quieter life than the clang of battle, the ardour of the march.  Gradually new impressions and new duties succeeded; and, ere four months elapsed, the quiet monotony of my daily life healed up the wounds of my suffering, and a sense of content, if not of happiness, crept gently over me, and I ceased to long for the clash of arms and the loud blast of the trumpet.

But three years later a regiment of infantry marching to Cork for embarkation for the Continent after Bonaparte’s return from Elba, roused all the eagerness of my old desires, and I volunteered for service again.

A few days after I was in Brussels, and attending that most memorable and most exciting entertainment, the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, on the night of June 15, 1815.  Lucy Dashwood was there, beautiful beyond anything I had ever seen her.  When the word came of the advance of Napoleon I was sent off with the major-general’s orders, and then joined the night march to Quatre Bras.  There I fell into the hands of a French troop and missed the fighting, though I saw Napoleon himself, and had the good fortune to effect the escape of Sir George Dashwood, who lay a prisoner under sentence of death in the same place as myself.  Early in the day of Waterloo I contrived my own escape, and was able to give Lord Wellington much information as to the French movements.

After the battle I wandered back into Brussels and learned that we had gained the day.  As I came into the city Sir George met me and took me into his hotel, where were Power and the senhora, about to be married.  Wounded by the innocent raillery of my friends, I escaped into an empty room and buried my head in my hands.  Oh, how often had the phantom of happiness passed within my reach, but glided from my grasp!

“Oh, Lucy, Lucy!” I exclaimed aloud.  “But for you, and a few words carelessly spoken, I had never trod the path of ambition whose end has been the wreck of all my happiness!  But for you I had never loved so fondly!  But for you, and I had never been—­”

“A soldier, you would say,” whispered a soft voice as a light hand gently touched my shoulder.  “No, Mr. O’Malley; deeply grateful as I am to you for the service you once rendered myself, bound as I am by every tie of thankfulness by the greater one to my father, yet do I feel that in the impulse I have given to your life I have done more to repay my debt to you than by all the friendship, all the esteem I owe you.  If, indeed, by any means, you became a soldier, then I am indeed proud.”