Argosy, Vol. 1 (December 9, 1882) — page 225: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

body and everything but himself and his own villainy, as is the way with na- tures of his sort. His brief furlough would end in three days, and before that time money must be raised to pay his army debts or sure disgrace awaited him. Heartily and energetically as the marquis, his father, had aided him in his endeavors to force the Countess Marie to wed him, he dared not tell him of the events of the night and of his attempted theft. Unscrupulous as the old man was and ambitious for his own house, such a low born crime as he had been guilty of would have been unpardonable in the eyes of the marquis, not so much because of the villainy of the thing as because of its imprudence. Besides, his father did not know the frightful extent of his debts. The lieutenant was too much afraid of his anger to tell him the truth about them. 50 the count’s plight was well nigh desperate, and he now concentrated all his faculties on a plan to escape from the dilemma in which his own rashness had placed him. Until that night he had been restrained from committing any act that could be construed into a positive crime. Weak, selfish and ambitious, he had gone step by step in the downward path until now he had thrown all moral responsibility to the four winds, and, like a cornered animal, he looked about for any weapon that would free him of his trouble. | ‘The next morning, pale and haggard from a sleepless night, he presented himself at breakfast. The sharp featured, white haired old marquis, sat in his armchair at the head of the table, his gouty foot looking abnormally large in its linen bandages, propped up on a stool before him. “You were out late last night, René, ”’ remarked his father, looking at him keenly from under his heavy eyebrows. The lieutenant, with a trembling hand, lifted a cup of strong coffee and cognac to his lips before replying. “JT felt a bit restless and out of sorts last evening, mon pére,” he said, “‘ and so I took a good hard gallop along the beach.” “Tt does not seem to have improved the condition of your nerves. Hello, what is that cut under your left ear?” The old man leaned forward and looked in his son’s face with his bright, searching eyes. ‘“ Have you been making a fool of yourself?” he added. The younger man flushed slightly and moved uneasily in his chair. “ What nonsense! In the darkness J ran too close to a tree, and a jagged end of a branch gave me that scratch.” The marquis accepted the explanation and dropped the subject. Just then his eye caught sight of an official looking envelope that lay, opened, by his plate. “Oh, by the way, René,” he said, “ I have just received a communication from the police of Taronne notifying me that a large body of brigands, in- vesting the Pyrenees, have recently been making depredations on the French border. They are composed for the most part of Spanish outlaws, who have of late been driven over this way by the vigilance and aggressiveness of some Spanish mountain troops, who were sent to try to exterminate them. What right have they to foist the villains on us? By my life, René, we may all be murdered in our beds some night!” COLT @ AOO UN ceo