ABSTRACT
The heavy loaded German coach proceeded very slowly, in a country where to proceed fast is never possible; and which was rendered now more difficult to travel in, by the long-continued rains that had laid many leagues of the country, on the banks of the Moselle,22 under water. D’Alonville, to whom a pair of pistols and a sabre had been given on his leaving the castle, rode pensively after the carriage, having no inclination to converse with Heurthofen, who, from time to time, cast towards him glances sufficiently expressive of the little goodwill he bore him. Dislike is usually reciprocal: and though in the agitated and distressed state of mind in which D’Alonville had lately been, he had given but little heed to the ungracious manners of the almoner towards him, the want of humanity and feeling towards his father, which Heurthofen had evidently betrayed, had not escaped him; and the sight of him now raised only uneasy recollections. No conversation, therefore, arose to call off, even for a moment, the thoughts of D’Alonville from his own situation: a situation that appeared insupportable the moment he began to think of it steadily. Hitherto solicitude for his father, his faint hopes, and his distracting fears, had absorbed every consideration for himself; but now he had lost this object of his anxiety, and all the horrors of his destiny rushed upon his mind.
