Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/36

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from the consequences of his own rash conduct, and had taken a deep and tender interest in the daughter. This was enough to blast Elizabeth's life. She gave up her lover—silently, but with a strange unyielding gentleness, she kept aloof from her father. She was not condemned to suffer long. The unhappy father followed her swiftly to the old burying ground at Malvern. Men commonly seek distraction in griefs. Pembroke was like the rest. He was popular, especially among the English colony where his love of sports and manly accomplishments made him a favorite—to say nothing of that prestige, which attaches to a man who has seen service. He had gone into the war a lieutenant, and had come out as major of his ragged, half-starved regiment. Therefore when Pembroke idled and amused himself in Paris, for some time Olivia could only feel sympathy for him. She knew well enough that his means were small and the company he kept was liable to diminish them—but after a while, she began to feel a hot indignation against him. So on this particular evening, the Colonel falling asleep opportunely, she took occasion to express her opinion to Pembroke, that their ruined country needed the presence and the service of every man she could call her own. Pembroke defended himself warmly at first. He came for Miles' sake—the boy whom he had thought safe at school, and who ran away in the very last days of the war to enlist—and almost the last shot that was fired—so Pembroke said bitterly—disfigured the