“To Mrs. Helena Locke,
“at the House of Alderman Pury,
“Gloucester.”
Norton refolded this sheet carefully, and thrust it into an inner pocket, reflecting that later on it might suit his purposes to send it to little Mistress Nell. Then, with a smile of malicious enjoyment, he read the address on the second letter.
“To Mistress Hilary Unett,
“care of the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Hereford.”
Unfastening the seal, he read with some surprise, the following words:
“I hesitate to break that silence which you most emphatically enforced when we last met, but the news of your bereavement, which I have just learnt from my father, so stirs my heart that write I must, and should this only offend you more deeply I must pay the penalty. That you are desolate and sad at heart I well know. My beloved, if only I could comfort you I would ask nothing more—but this is the sorest part of our unhappy difference as to the war, that I am cut off from the right of serving you, and am doubtful whether you will even be at the trouble to read these lines. But should you read them, then I pray you read betwixt the lines the love for you which fills my heart—a love that is ill at expressing itself in words, but which will always be longing to serve you while life lasts. It is some consolation to me to know that you are with your grandfather, whose kindness when last he parted with me I cannot forget. I have just had the pleasure of seeing Sir Ralph Hopton, the noblest of all His Majesty’s Generals, being sent (in the absence of Captain Joscelyn Heyworth) with a letter from Sir W. Waller. Sir Ralph was kind enough to call cousins with me on account of Mistress Martha Harford, who was afterwards wedded to Mr. Michael Hopton—you will remember smiling over her mistaken epitaph on the monument in Bosbury Church. Was it in some other life that we spent that happy day at Bosbury, when we were betrothed? Would to God we could find ourselves there once more with hearts united! Should you see my father, will you let him know that we are expecting a decisive battle in the neighbourhood of Bath? I will write to him after it is over.
“Dear Hilary, for the sake of old days, I pray you at least to accept my sympathy in your sorrow, and
“Believe that I rest ever