"I did—or almost all!"
"Then, since he has not shot you, I presume you are now restored to the Forty-sixth, and become the just pride of the regiment?"
Dick's voice had become bitter with a bitterness at which John wondered; but all his answer was:
"Look at these clothes. They will tell you if I am restored to the Forty-sixth."
"So that was more than Amherst could bring himself to stomach?"
"On the contrary, he gave me my choice. But I am resigning my commission."
"Eh? Well, I suppose your monstrous luck with the dispatches had earned you his leniency. You told him of Fort Frontenac, I presume?"
"I did not tell him of that. But someone else had taken care that he should learn something of it."
"The girl? You don't mean to tell me that your luck stepped in once again?"
"Mademoiselle Diane must have guessed that I meant to tell the General all. She left a sealed letter which he opened in my presence. As for my luck," continued John—and now it was his turn to speak bitterly—"you may think how I value it when I tell you how the letter ended. With the General's help, it said, she was hiding herself for ever; and as a man of honour I must neither seek her nor hope for sight of her again."