“How acted my brother officers, when, previously to the trial, I alluded to the damnable treachery of your father?  Did they condemn his conduct, or sympathise with me in my misfortune?—­No; they shrugged their shoulders, and coldly observed, I ought to have known better than to trust one against whom they had so often cautioned me; but that as I had selected him for my friend, I should have bestowed a whole, and not a half confidence upon him.  He had had the hypocrisy to pretend to them he had violated no trust, since he had honourably espoused a lady whom I had introduced to him as a cousin, and in whom I appeared to have no other interest than that of relationship.  Not, they said, that they believed he actually did entertain that impression; but still the excuse was too plausible, and had been too well studied by my cunning rival, to be openly refuted.  As for the mere fact of his supplanting me, they thought it an excellent thing,—­a ruse d’amour for which they never would have given him credit; and although they admitted it was provoking enough to be ousted out of one’s mistress in that cool sort of way, still I should not so far have forgotten myself as to have struck him while he was unarmed, when it was so easy to have otherwise fastened an insult on him.  Such,” bitterly pursued Wacousta, “was the consolation I received from men, who, a few short weeks before, had been sedulous to gain and cultivate my friendship,—­but even this was only vouchsafed antecedent to my trial.  When the sentence was promulgated, announcing my dismissal from the service, every back was turned upon me, as though I had been found guilty of some dishonourable action or some disgraceful crime; and, on the evening of the same day, when I threw from me for ever an uniform that I now loathed from my inmost soul, there was not one among those who had often banqueted at my expense, who had the humanity to come to me and say, ’Sir Reginald Morton, farewell.’

“What agonies of mind I endured,—­what burning tears I nightly shed upon a pillow I was destined to press in freezing loneliness,—­what hours of solitude I passed, far from the haunts of my fellow-men, and forming plans of vengeance,—­it would take much longer time to relate than I have actually bestowed on my unhappy history.  To comprehend their extent and force, you must understand the heart of fire in which the deep sense of injury had taken root; but the night wears away, and briefly told must be the remainder of my tale.  The rebellion of forty-five saw me in arms in the Scottish ranks; and, in one instance, opposed to the regiment from which I had been so ignominiously expelled.  Never did revenge glow like a living fire in the heart of man as it did in mine; for the effect of my long brooding in solitude had been to inspire me with a detestation, not merely for those who had been most rancorous in their enmity, but for every thing that wore the uniform, from the commanding officer down to the meanest private.  Every blow that I dealt, every life that I sacrificed, was an insult washed away from my attainted honour; but him whom I most sought in the melee I never could reach.  At length the corps to which I had attached myself was repulsed; and I saw, with rage in my heart, that my enemy still lived to triumph in the fruit of his villainy.