“May I?” said Esmeralda, delightedly. Then her face fell. “But I’m afraid he would not come. He—he said he would not.”
“I don’t see why he shouldn’t,” said Trafford, in faint surprise. “It’s nothing of a journey nowadays.”
Esmeralda looked at him wistfully. She saw that he did not understand, and she would have liked to have explained to him; but for Varley’s sake she kept silent.
She wrote a long letter to him, telling him all about Belfayre, and the duke, and Lady Lilias, and of her engagement to Trafford; and she begged Varley to come over to England. She sent her love to all old friends, mentioning them by name, and she signed herself his dear Esmeralda. “You told me that if I was ever unhappy I was to come back to you and Three Star,” she added, in a postscript; “but, Varley, dear, I am the happiest girl alive, and I’m afraid I shall never come back to Three Star again. So you must come to me. Do come! You would like the duke and Trafford—oh! you would be sure to like him, and he you. He is just what you like, so brave, and kind, and good!”
With the letter she sent a great case of presents. Dresses and shawls for Melinda, tobacco for Taffy and the rest of the men, and a diamond ring—one of the best—for Varley himself.
Varley did not acquaint the men with her engagement to the Marquis of Trafford, but he conveyed her love to them; and, when the case arrived, there was much rejoicing in Three Star.
“Who said our Esmeralda was a-going to forget her old pals?” demanded Taffy, fiercely. “Let him stand out, and I’ll knock his head off!”
As no one had made the assertion, no one came forward to have his head knocked off; but heads ached the next morning from the whisky that was drunk over that case.
Varley’s reply came in due course. He wished his Esmeralda all the happiness in the world—as did all the camp—but he would not come to England. He, too, put a postscript to remind her that her promise still held good, and that, if ever she was unhappy, she was to go straight back to Three Star, where loving hearts awaited her.
The letter brought tears to Esmeralda’s eyes. But it did not reach her until she was back in London, and plunged into a whirl of pleasure and gayety.