back again to the days when the General had seen Lady Claudia for
the first time. He was proud of the circumstances under which he
had won his wife. Ah, how my heart ached for him as I saw his
eyes sparkle, and the color mount in his fine rugged face!

This is the substance of what I heard from him. I tell it
briefly, because it is still painful to me to tell it at all.


My uncle had met Lady Claudia at her father's country house. She
had then reappeared in society, after a period of seclusion,
passed partly in England, partly on the Continent. Before the
date of her retirement, she had been engaged to marry a French
nobleman, equally illustrious by his birth and by his diplomatic
services in the East. Within a few weeks of the wedding-day, he
was drowned by the wreck of his yacht. This was the calamity to
which my uncle had referred.

Lady Claudia's mind was so seriously affected by the dreadful
event, that the doctors refused to answer for the consequences,
unless she was at once placed in the strictest retirement. Her
mother, and a French maid devotedly attached to her, were the
only persons whom it was considered safe for the young lady to
see, until time and care had in some degree composed her. Her
return to her friends and admirers, after the necessary interval
of seclusion, was naturally a subject of sincere rejoicing among
the guests assembled in her father's house. My uncle's interest
in Lady Claudia soon developed into love. They were equals in
rank, and well suited to each other in age. The parents raised no
obstacles; but they did not conceal from their guest that the