The news that Colonel Audley's engagement was at an end afforded curiously little satisfaction to his friends. They had all wanted to see it broken, and the crease smoothed from between the Colonel's brows, but the crease grew deeper, and a hard look seemed to have settled about his month. Occasionally the old, charming smile flashed out, but although he would talk lightly enough, laugh at the Headquarters' jokes, spar sometimes with his fellow-officers, and dance at the balls as willingly as he had ever done, those who knew him found his cheerfulness forced, and realised sadly that the gay hussar had vanished, leaving in his place an older man, who was rather aloof, often abstracted, and had no confidences to make. The young Prince of Nassau, entering shyly upon his very nominal duties or the Duke's staff, was even a little nervous of him, a circumstance which at first astonished Colonel Gordon. "Stern?" he repeated. "Audley? I think your Highness has perhaps mistaken the word?"
"Un peu severe," said the Prince.
"It's quite true," said Fremantle. "Damn the wench!" he added, giving his sash a vicious hitch. "I wish to God she would go back to England and give the poor devil a chance to forget her! If she had a spark of sensibility she would!"
"Perhaps she doesn't want him to forget her," suggested Gordon. "Do you think she means to get him back?"
"If she does she ain't going the right way to work. They're saying she'll have that Belgian fellow - what's his name? Bylandt's brigade: all teeth and eyes and black whiskers. Ugh!"
"Lavisse," said Gordon, apparently recognising the count from this description without any difficulty.
"That's it. Such a dog with the ladies! Well, they'll make a nicely-matched pair, and I wish them joy of one another."
"It must hit Charles pretty badly."
"Of course it does! Look at him! The Prince here says he looks stern. I daresay that's how it would strike anyone who didn't know him. He looks to me as if he were enjoying a taste of hell."
He had gauged the matter exactly. Colonel Audley, had known that Peregrine Taverner's only hope of overcoming his infatuation lay in removing immediately from Barbara's neighbourhood, was tied to Brussels, and was obliged, day after day, to endure tantalising glimpses of Barbara, and night after night to see her waltzing with the Comte de Lavisse, looking up into his face with a smile on her lips and a provocative gleam in her eyes.
There were those who said that if Barbara had been quick to find consolation, so too had Audley. Neither was showing a bruised heart to the world. She had her handsome Belgian always at her side, and the Colonel seemed to have turned to little Miss Devenish. Well, said the interested, she would probably make him good wife.
Judith, wishing to believe that Charles, freed from his siren, had become sensible of Lucy's worth, still could not quite convince herself that it was so. "Do you think," she asked her husband hopefully, "that a man who had fancied himself in love with Lady Barbara might perhaps suffer from a revulsion of feeling, and so turn to her very opposite?"
"I really have no idea," replied Worth.
"It is quite true that he has been very much in her company since the engagement was broken off. He dances with her frequently, and seems to look at her with a great deal of kindness. Only -"
She broke off. Worth regarded her with a faint smile. "What profound observation are you about to make," he enquired.
"I can't believe that if he were falling in love with Lucy he would be so unhappy. For he is, Worth: you can't deny it! There is an expression in his face when he thinks one is not looking at him - I would like to kill that wicked creature! She to jilt Charles!"
"This is all very bewildering," complained Worth. "I thought your hopes had been centred on her eventually doing so?"
"Yes, I did hope it, but I didn't know it had gone so deep with him. How wretched everything is! Even my spirits are quite oppressed. Lucy, too! She has no appearance of happiness, which makes me fear that Charles only feels towards her as a brother might."
He raised his brows. "Is she in love with him?"
"I very much fear it."
"Now you have gone quite beyond me," he said. "I was under the impression that you had made up your mind that she should fall in love with him?"
"So I had, but I never dreamed then that he would become entangled with the horridest woman in Brussels. If he could requite Lucy's love it would be the most delightful thing imaginable, but I don't believe he does."
"You will admit it to be early days yet for him to be bestowing his affections a second time."
"Lady Barbara does not seem to find it too early! But Lucy!" She paused, frowning. "I was afraid that the child was losing her prettiness over Lord George, but nothing could be more resolute than her shunning of his society. It has seemed to me that since Charles has been free, she has been regaining some of her spirits. But I would not for the world encourage that attachment, if there is no hope of Charles's affections becoming animated towards her."
"May I make a suggestion?"
"Of course: what is it?"
"That you cease to worry your head over either of them," said Worth. "You will do no good by it, and if you begin to lose your prettiness you will find you have me to reckon with."
She smiled, but shook her head. "I cannot help but worry over them. If only Lady Barbara had had enough good feeling to go away from here! It must be painful beyond words for Charles to find himself continually in her company. My only dependence is on his being at last disgusted by her conduct."
"We will hope for that agreeable end. Meanwhile. Charles can at least consider himself fortunate in being kept busy by the Duke."
"I suppose so. What does he think of it? Has he made any comment?"
"None to me."
"I daresay he might not care. I do not consider him a man of much sensibility. He is very amiable and unaffected, but there is a coldness, a lack of feeling for others, which, I confess, repels me at times."
"He's a hard man, no doubt, but it is just possible. my dear, that he has matters of more moment to occupy him than the love affairs of his staff," said Worth, somewhat ironically.
The Duke, however, did comment on the broken engagement, though not perhaps in a manner which, would have raised Judith's opinion of his character, had she been able to hear him. "By the by, Fitzroy," he said, looking up from the latest missive from General Decken on the vexed question of the Hanoverian subsidy, "what's this I hear about Audley?"
"The engagement is at an end, sir, that's all I've been told."
"By God, I'm very glad to hear it!" said his lordship, dipping his pen in the standish. "She was doing him no good, and I'm damned if I'll have my officers ruined for their duties by her tricks!"
That was all his lordship had to say about it, but, as Worth had correctly surmised, he was too busy to have any time to waste on the love affairs of his staff.
He had got his Army together, but spoke of it in the most disparaging terms, and was continually being chafed by the want of horses and equipment. General Decken's demands were rapacious: he could do nothing with the fellow, and would be obliged to refer the whole question of the Hanoverian subsidy to the Government. King William had taken some nonsense into his head over the junction of the Nassau contingent, under General Kruse, with the Dutch-Belgian troops, and was in one of his huffs. It was very difficult to know what went on in that froggish head, but his lordship believed the trouble to have arisen largely out of the Duke of Nassau's failure to write formally to His Majesty on the subject of these troops. Well, if the King could not have them his lordship would be obliged to make some other arrangement.
He had had an exasperating letter from his Royal highness the Duke of Cambridge, putting a scheme before him for the augmentation of the German Legion by volunteers from the Hanoverian line regiments. If the Royal Dukes would be a little less busy his lordship would be the better pleased. A nice feeling of dissatisfaction there would be if any such measures were put into action!
"Both the Legion and the line would be disorganised exactly at the moment I should require their services," he wrote, and enclosed for his Royal Highness's digestion a copy of the objections to the precious scheme which he had sent to Lord Bathurst.
In polite circles he was still being flippant about the chances of war, but occasionally he dropped the pretence now. When Georgiana Lennox mentioned a pleasure party to Lille, or Tournay, which some officer had projected, he said decidedly: "No, better let that drop."
He gratified Mr Creevey by talking to him in the most natural way, joining him in the Park one day where Mr Creevey was walking with his stepdaughter . He spoke quite frankly of the debates in Parliament on the war, and Mr Creevey, finding him so accessibly asked with one of his twinkling, penetrating glance "Now then, will you let me ask you, Duke, what you-think you will make of it?"
"By God!" said his lordship, standing still. "I think Blucher and myself can do the thing!"
"Do you calculate upon any desertion in Bonaparte's army?" enquired Creevey.
No, his lordship did not reckon upon a man. We may pick up a marshal or two," he added, "but not worth a damn."
Mr Creevey mentioned the French King's troops at Alost, but that made his lordship give one of his whoops of laughter. "Oh! Don't mention such fellows!" he said. "No, no! I think Blucher and I can do the business!" He saw a British soldier strolling along at some little distance, and pointed to him. "There," he said. "It all depends on that article whether we do the business or not. Give me enough of it, and I am sure."
This was good news to take home to Mrs Creevey. It gave Creevey a better opinion of the Duke's understanding, too, and made him feel that in spite of every disquieting rumour from the frontier there was no need to fly for safety yet.
There were plenty of rumours, of course, but people had been alarmed so many times to no purpose that they were beginning to take only a fleeting interest in the news that came from France. It was said that everywhere on the road from Paris to the frontier -reparations were being made for the movements of troops in carriages. It was said that Bonaparte was expected to be at Laon on June 6th; on June 10th report placed him at Maubeuge, but the Duke had certain intelligence of his being still in Paris, and issued invitations for a ball he was giving later in the month.
He was always giving balls, informal little affairs got up on the spur of the moment, but this was to be a splendid function, outdoing all the others which had been held in Brussels. There would be so many Royalties present that the Duchess of Richmond declared that there would be no room for a mere commoner. The Dutch King and Queen were coming; the Prince of Orange, and Prince Frederick; the Duke of Brunswick; the Prince of Nassau; Prince Bernhard of de-Weimar, who commanded the 2nd Dutch-Belgic Brigade under General Perponcher; and of course the Duc de Berri, with his entourage of exalted personages.There was much laughing rivalry between his Lordship and the Duchess of Richmond over this question of balls. The best hostess in Brussels was not to be outdone by his lordship, and whipped in before him with her gilt-edged invitations for the night of Jun 15th. His lordship acknowledged himself to have been outmanoeuvred, and was obliged to postpone his own ball until later in the month. "Honours are even however," said Georgiana. "For though Mama has the better date, the Duke has the King and Queen!"
"Pooh!" said her Grace. "They will make the part very stiff and stupid. It will be all pretension, Duke! I promise you, my ball will be the success of the season!
"No such thing! It will be forgotten in the success of mine."
"It will be too hot for dancing by that time. Have you thought of that?"
"We will take this young woman's ruling on the point. Is it ever too hot for dancing, Georgy.." demanded his lordship, pinching her chin.
"No, never!" responded Georgiana. "Mama, consider if you provoke the Duke, perhaps he won't come to our party, and then we shall be undone!"
"That would be too infamous!" said the Duchess. "I will not believe him capable of such dastardly behaviour."
"No, no, I shall be there!" promised his lordship.
It was hard to believe that in the midst of their light-hearted schemes, other and much grimmer plans were revolving in his lordship's head. Foreigners, coming to Brussels, found the Duke's Headquarters a perplexing place, and his staff incurably flippant. No one seemed to take the approaching war seriously,young officers lounged in and out, talking to one another in a careless drawl that had so much annoyed General Roder; Lord Fitzroy would pause in the writing of important letters to exchange a joke with some friend who apparently thought nothing of interrupting his work; in the adjutant-general's teeming office, assistants and deputy-assistants demanded the names of bootmakers, or discussed the chances of competitors in the horse race at Grammont. It had never seemed to poor General Roder that anyone did any work, for work was mentioned in the most offhand fashion; yet the work was done, and the lounging young officers who looked so sleepy, and dressed so carelessly, carried the duke's message's to the Army at a speed which made The Prussian general blink. They would drag themselves out of their chairs, groaning, twitting each other on the need for exertion, and stroll out with yawns, and lazy comands for their horses. You would see them mount their English hunters: "Well, if I don't come back you'll know I've lost myself - Where is the damned place?" they would say. But long before you would have believed it possible they could have reached their destination, let alone have returned from it, there they there again, with nothing but the dust on their boots to betray that they had ever left Brussels. General Roder, accustomed to officers bustling about their business, clicking their heels together smartly in salute, disscussing military matters with zest and enthusiasm, would never be able to understand these English, who, incomprehensibly, considered it bad ton to talk about anything but quite childish trivialities.
But General Roder had been relieved at last. thanking God to be going away from such Headquarters, and in his place a very different officer had come to Brussels. General Baron vor Muffling brought no prejudices with him, or, if he did, he concealed them. Gneisenau had warned him to be very much on his guard in the English camp.
but General Muffling had dealt with Gneisenau for many years, and knew him to be a prey to preconceived ideas. The General came to Brussels with an open mind, and immediately endeared himself to his hosts by confessing with a disarming smile that in his early studies of the English language he had never got beyond The Vicar of Wakefield and Thomson's Seasons. He made it his business to try to understand the English character, and to earn the Duke's confidence, and succeeded in both aims to admiration. The Duke found him to be a sensible man, given to speaking the plain truth; and the staff, accustomed to the glaring disapproval of General Roder, declared him to be a very good sort of a fellow, and made him welcome in their own easy unceremonious fashion.
He was soon on good terms with everyone. His manners were polished, his address a mixture of tact and dignity. He did not snort at graceless lieutenants. and he never committed the solecism of introducing grim topics of conversation at festive gatherings. He seemed, in fact, to enjoy life in Brussels, and to be amused by the Headquarters' jokes.
"I think you are something of a wizard, Baron," said Judith. "Your predecessor was never on such terms with us all, though he had been in Brussels for so long."
"That is true," he replied. "But General Roder's irritability carried him too far. It is unfair for anyone in the midst of a foreign nation to frame his expectations on the ideas he brings with him. He should instead study the habits and customs of his hosts."
"Do you find our customs very different from your own?"
"Oh yes, certainly! In your Army, for instance, I find some customs better than ours; others perhaps not so good. There is much to bewilder the poor foreigner, I assure you, madame. There are the Duke's aides-de-camp and galopins, for example. One is at first astonished to find that these gentlemen are of the best families, and count it an honour to serve the Duke in this manner. Then one is astonished to see them so nonchalant." A smile crept into his eyes; he said: "One finds it hard to believe them to be des hommes serieux! But I discover that these so languid young officers make it a point of honour to ride four of your English miles in eighteen minutes, whenever the Duke adds the word Quick to his despatch. So then I perceive that I have been misjudging them, and I must reassemble my ideas."
"How do you go on with the Duke?" asked Worth.
"Very well, I believe. He is agreeable, and in matters of service very short and decided."
"Excessively short, I understand!" said Judith, with a laugh.
"Perhaps, yes," he acknowledged. "He exercises far greater power in the Army he commands than Prince von Blucher does in ours. It is not the custom, I find, to criticise or control your commander-in-chief. With us it is different. On our staff everything is discussed openly in the hearing of all the officers, which is, I find, not good, for time is wasted, and there are always what the Marshal calls Trubsals-Spritzen - I think you say - trouble-squirts?"
"No, you won't find the Duke discussing his plans with his officers," said Worth. "He is not held to held to be over-and-above fond of being asked questions, either."
The Baron replied in a thoughtful tone: "He allows questions. It would be more correct to say that he dismisses all such as are unnecessary. There is certainly an impatience to be observed sometimes, but his character is distinguished by its openness and rectitude and must make him universally respected. There should be the utmost harmony between him and the Marshal and the exertions of myself and of your estimable Colonel Hardinge must be alike directed towards this end."
"Yes, indeed," said Judith faintly. "I am sure - And how do you like being in Brussels, Baron? I hope you do not agree with General von Roder in thinking us very frivolous!"
"Madame, it is not possible!" he said, with a gallant bow. "Everyone is most amiable! One envies the English officers the beautiful wives who follow them so intrepidly to the seat of war."
She could not help laughing. "Oh! Are you married, Baron?"
"Yes," he replied. "I am the possessor of a noble-minded wife and three hopeful children."
"How - how delightful!" said Judith, avoiding her husband's eye.
But in spite of the occasionally paralysing remarks he made, Baron Muffling was a man of considerable shrewdness, and he soon learned not only to adapt himself to his company but to induce the Duke to trust him. He was perfectly frank with his lordship. "Prince Blucher will never make difficulties when the talk is of advancing and attacking. In retrograde movements his vexation sometimes overpowers him, but he soon recovers himself," he told the Duke. "General Gneisenau is chivalrous and strictly just, but he believes that you should always require from men more than they can perform, which is a principle which I consider as dangerous as it is incorrect. As for our infantry, it does not possess the same bodily strength or powers of endurance as yours. The greater mass of our troops are young and inexperienced. We cannot reckon on them obstinately continuing a fight from morning till evening. They will not do it."
"Oh! I think very little of soldiers running away at times," said his lordship. "The steadiest troops will occasionally do so - but it is a serious matter if they do not come back."
"You may depend upon one thing," Muffling assured him. "When the Prince has agreed to any operation in common, he will keep his word."
Yes, the Duke could be more than ever sure that he and old Blucher would be able to do the business, in spite of his infamous Army, his inexperienced staff, and every obstacle put in his way by the people at home. His personal staff had been augmented by Lieutenant Colonel Canning, who had served him in the Peninsula, and had had the temerity to beg to be employed again as an aide-de-camp; and by Major the Honourable Henry Percy, whom he had enrolled as an extra. He had nothing to complain of in his own family at least, though he was inclined to think it a great pity that Audley should not have recovered from his affair with Barbara Childe. However, it did not seem to be interfering with his work, which was all that signified.
Colonel Audley had, in fact flung himself into his work with an energy that must have pleased General Roder, had he been there to see it. It did not help him to forget Barbara, but while he was busy he could not be thinking of her, picturing the glimmer of her eyes, the lustre of her hair, the lovely smile that lifted the corners of her mouth; or torturing himself with wondering what she was doing, whether she was happy or perhaps secretly sad, and, most of all, who was with her.
There was very little room for doubt about that, he knew. She would be with Lavisse, riding with him, waltzing with him, held too close in his arms for propriety, his black head close to her flaming one, his lips almost brushing her ear as he murmured his expert lovemaking into it. She was behaving outrageously: even those who had grown accustomed to her odd flights were shocked. She had borrowed Harry's clothes, and had gone swaggering through the streets with George for a vulgar bet; she had won a race in her phaeton against a wild young ne'er-do-well in whose company no lady of breeding would have permitted herself to have been seen. She had appeared at the opera in a classical robe which left one shoulder bare and revealed beneath its diaphanous folds more than even the most daring creature would have cared to show; she had set a roomful of gentlemen in a roar by singing in the demurest way a couple of the most shocking French ballads. The ladies present had been unable to follow the words of the songs, which were extremely idiomatic, but they knew when their husbands were laughing at improper jokes, and there was not a married man there who had not to endure a certain lecture that night.
Lord Vidal was furious. He threatened to turn his sister out of doors, which made her laugh. He could not do it, of course, for ten to one she would simply install herself at one of the hotels, and a pretty scandal that would create. There was only one person to whom she might possibly attend, and that was her grandmother.
Vidal had written to that wise old lady the very night the engagement was broken off, begging her to exert her influence, but apparently she did not choose to do so for she had neither answered his letter nor written one to Barbara.
Even Augusta was taken aback by Barbara's behaviour, and remonstrated with her. Barbara turned on her with a white face and blazing eyes. "Leave me alone!" she said. "I'll do what I choose, and if I choose to go to the devil it is my business, and not yours!"
"Oh, agreed!" said Augusta, shrugging bore shoulders. "But I find your conduct very odd, I must say. If you are hankering after your staff officer -"
A harsh little laugh cut her short. "Pray do not be ridiculous, Gussie! I had almost forgotten his existence!"
"I am happy to hear you say so, but I fail to see the purpose of all this running about. Why can you not be still?"
"Because I can't, because I won't!"
"Do you mean to have Lavisse?"
"Oh, don't talk to me of more engagements. I have had enough of being tied, I can assure you."
"Take care he does not grow tired of your trick . In my opinion you are playing a dangerous game." She added maliciously: "You are not irresistible, you know. Colonel Audley seems to have had no difficulty in consoling himself elsewhere. How do you like to be supplanted by a little nobody like Lucy Devenish?"
She had the satisfaction of seeing a quiver run over Barbara's face. Barbara replied, however, without hesitation: "Oh, she'll make him a capital wife! I told him so."
Lord George received the news of the broken engagement with careless unconcern. "I daresay you know your own business best," he said. "I never thought him our sort."
But Lord Harry nearly wept over it. "The nicest fellow that ever was in love with you, and you jilt him for a damned frog!" he exclaimed.
"If you mean Lavisse, he is a Belgian, and not a Frenchman, and I did not jilt Charles Audley. He was perfectly ready to let me go, you know," replied Barbara candidly.
"I don't believe it! The truth is you played off your tricks till no man worth his salt would stand it! I know you!"
She twisted her hands in her lap, gripping her fingers together. "If you know me you must admit that we were not suited."
"No!" he said hotly. "You are only suited to a fellow like Lavisse! He will do very well for you, and I wish you joy of him!"
"Thank you," she said, with a crooked smile. "I have not yet accepted him, however."
"Why not? He's as rich as Croesus, and he won't care how you behave as long as you don't interfere with his little pleasures. You'll make a famous pair!"
He slammed out of her presence, and sought Colonel Audley. The interview was rather a trying one for the Colonel, for there was no curbing Harry's unpetuous tongue. "Oh, I say, sir, don't give her up!" he begged. "She'll marry that Belgian fellow if you do, sure as fate!"
"My dear boy, you don't -"
"No, but only listen, sir! It ain't vice with Bab really it ain't, She's spoilt, but she don't mean the things she says, and I'm ready to swear she's never gone beyond flirtation. I daresay you're thinking of that Darcy affair, but -"
"I am not thinking of any affair, Harry."
"Of course I know she has the devil's own temper - gets it from my grandfather: George has it too - but perhaps you don't understand that the things they do when they are in their rages don't mean anything. Of course, George is a shocking fellow, but Bab isn't. People say she's heartless, but myself I'm devilish fond of her, and if she marries a damned rake like Lavissz it'll be just too much to bear!"
"I'm sorry, Harry, but you have it wrong. It wasn't I who broke the engagement."
"But Charles, if you would only see her!"
"Do you imagine that I am going to crawl to your sister, begging to be taken on the strength again?"
Harry sighed. "No. No, of course you wouldn't do that."
"You say that she is going to marry Lavisse. If that is so, there is no possibility of our engagement's being renewed. In any case - No! it will not do. I have been brought to realise that, and upon reflection I think you must realise it too."
"It's such a damned shame!" Harry burst out. "I don't want Lavisse for a brother-in-law! I never liked any of the others half as well as you!"
He sounded so disconsolate that in a mood less bleak the Colonel must have been amused. His spirits were too much oppressed, however, for him to be able to bear such a discussion with equanimity. He was glad when Harry at last took himself off.
Harry's artless disclosures left a painful impression: an unacknowledged hope had lingered in the Colonel's mind that Barbara's encouragement of Lavisse might have been the outcome merely of pique. But Harry's words seemed to show that she was indeed serious. Her family looked upon the match as certain; Colonel Audley was forced to recall the many occasions during their engagement when she had seemed to feel a decided partiality for the Count. He had believed her tireless flirtations to be only the expression of a certain volatility of mind, which stronger ties of affection would put an end to. It had not been so. The mischief of her upbringing, the hardening effect of a distasteful marriage, had vitiated a character of whose underlying worth he could still entertain no doubt. That the heart was unspoiled, he was sure: could he but have possessed himself of it he was persuaded all would have been different. Her conduct had convinced him that he had failed, and although, even through the anger that had welled up in him at their last meeting, he had been conscious of an almost overpowering impulse to keep her upon any terms, a deeper instinct had held him silent.
He had passed since then through every phase of doubt, sometimes driven so nearly mad by the desire to hold her in his arms that he had fallen asleep at night with the fixed intention of imploring her to let everything be as it had been before their quarrel, only to wake in the morning to a realization of the impossibility of building happiness upon such foundations. Arguments clashed, and nagged in his brain. He blamed himself for lack of tact, for having been too easy, for having been too harsh. Sometimes he was sure that he had handled her wrongly from the start; then profounder knowledge would possess him, and he would recognise with regret the folly of all such arguments. There could be no question of tact or mishandling where the affections were engaged. He came back wearily to the only thing he knew to be certain: that since the love she had felt for him had been a light emotion, as fleeting as her smile, nothing but misery could attend their marriage.
After prolonged strife the mind becomes a Iittle numb, repeating dully the old arguments, but ceasing to attach a meaning to them. It was so with Colonel Audley. His brain continued to revolve every argument. but he seemed no longer capable of drawing any conclusions from them. He could neither convince himself that the rift was final nor comfort himself with the hope of renewing the engagement. He was aware. chiefly, of an immense lassitude, but beneath it, and underlying his every word and thought, was a pain that had turned from a sharp agony into an ache which was always present, yet often ignored, because familiarty had inured him to it.
The unfortunate circumstance of his being obliged to remain in Brussels, where he must not only see Barbara. continually but was forced to live under the eyes of scores of people whom he knew to be watching him imposed a strain upon him that began very soon to appear in his face. Judith, obliged to respect his evident wish that the affair should be forgotten, was goaded to exclaiming to Worth: "I could even wish the war would break out, if only it would take Charles away from this place!"
Upon the following day, June 14th, it seemed as though her wish would be granted. She was at Lady Conynghame's in the evening, congratulating Lord Hay upon his win at the races at Grammont upon the previous day, when Colonel Audley came in with news of serious movement on the frontier. On June 13th, Sir Hussey Vivian, whose hussar brigade was stationed to the south of Tournay, had discovered that he had opposite him not a cavalry picket, as had previously been the case, but a mere collection of douaniers, who, upon being questioned, had readily disclosed the fact of the French army's concentration about Maubeuge. Shortly after the Colonel's entrance some other guests came in with a rumour that the French had actually crossed the frontier. All disbelief was presently put an end to by the Duke's arrival. He was calm, and in good spirits, but replied to the eager questions put to him that he believed the rumour to be true.