"A very likely story!"

"Yes, a very likely story!"--and Betty, still smiling, passed on into
the music-room, where she took her violin from its case and played
some rollicking measures from Offenbach.

At the same time her father rose and went out on the lawn, where he
walked up and down, with a long, quick, nervous stride. From time to
time a wailing note from the violin floated out to him, and he would
stop and raise his haggard face toward heaven. His face was no longer
masked in smiles; it was grief-stricken, self-abhorring. At length he
softly crossed the lawn and stood before the music-room window. Ah,
no fretting care sat on yonder exquisite face, nor pain, nor trouble;
youth, only youth and some pleasant thought which the music had
aroused. How like her mother! How like her mother!

Suddenly he smote himself on the brow with a clenched hand. "Wretch!
God-forsaken wretch, how have you kept your trust? And how yonder
child has stabbed you! How innocently she has stabbed you! My
country! ... My honor! ... My courage and steadfastness! Mockery!"




XI

THE FIRST RIDE


The next morning Warburton was shown into a neat six-by-eight, just