The
shouting of the multitude ceased instantaneously. I gazed upon my
antagonist, he gazed upon me. Our hands fell; we both shook; we were the
image of each other. Three years afterwards I was in Holland. A soldier
was unjustly condemned to die; I saved him; I obtained his pardon. He
was my strange counterpart whom I met in Devonshire. He had the mark of
the rose-bud beneath his chin that I have, and which you say my brother
has."
"And where is he now?" eagerly inquired the colonel.
"Alas! I know not," answered Charles; "nor do I think he lives. Three
days after I had rescued him from unmerited death, I learned that he had
fallen bravely on the field; and whether he be now a prisoner or with
the dead, I cannot tell."
"Surely it was thy brother," said the colonel; "yet how he should be in
Devonshire, or a soldier in the ranks, puzzles me to think. No, no,
Charles, it cannot be; it is a coincidence, heightened by imagination.
Your grandfather has not been kind to me, but he is not capable of the
cruelty which the tale you have told would imply he had exercised
towards the child I entrusted to his care.
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