How little those who live at home at ease can know of the delight it gives an exile to have tidings, by letter or otherwise, from those who are dear to them in the old country when far, far away from it! No matter how short the sentences, how few the facts, or how clumsy the expressions, they all seem to show that we are not forgotten by the old fireside; for even amid the keen and fierce excitement of war the soldier has often time for much thought of friends and home, especially in the lonely watches of the night, and a pang goes to his heart with the fear that, as he is absent, he may be forgotten.
Florian had often envied the delight with which his comrades, Tom Tyrrell or poor Bob Edgehill, who perished at Isandhlwana, and others received letters from distant friends and relatives; but month after month had passed, and none ever came to him, nor did he expect any.
In all the world there was no one to think of him save Dulcie Carlyon. How he longed to write to her, but knew not where she was.
At last there came an evening—he never forgot it—when the sergeant who acted as regimental postman brought him a letter—a letter addressed to himself, and in the handwriting of Dulcie!
His fingers trembled as he carefully but hastily cut open the envelope. It was dated from Craigengowan, a place of which he scarcely knew the name, but thought he had heard it mentioned by Mr. Kenneth Kippilaw on the eventful day when he and Shafto visited that gentleman at his office.
After many prettily expressed protestations of regard for himself—every word of which stirred his heart deeply—of joy that he was winning distinction, and of fear for the awful risks he ran in war, she informed him that the situation obtained for her had been that of companion to Lady Fettercairn, 'and who do you think I found installed here as master of the whole situation, as heir to the title and a truly magnificent property—Shafto! Perhaps I am wrong to tell you, lest it may worry you, but he has resumed his persecution of me. He often taunts me about you, and fills me with terror lest he may do me a mischief with Lady Fettercairn, as he has already contrived to do with his cousin, Miss Finella (a dear darling girl) and Captain Hammersley, the officer whose life you so bravely saved at Ginghilovo, and who, I now learn, is in your regiment. It was an infamous trick, but it succeeded in separating them and nearly breaking Finella's heart.'
The letter then proceeded to detail how Finella, to her extreme dismay and discomfiture, had dropped Hammersley's pencilled note; how Shafto had found it, and intercepted her in the shrubbery on her way to the place of rendezvous, and would only restore it on receiving, as a bribe, a cousinly kiss, which she was compelled to accord, when he rudely seized her and snatched several before she could repulse him; how Hammersley had passed at that fatal moment, and misconceived the whole situation, since when, language could not express the loathing Finella had of Shafto. That was the whole affair.
'You know Shafto and all of which he is capable,' continued Dulcie; 'so poor Finella is heartbroken in contemplating the horrid view her lover must take of her, but is without the means of explaining it away, nor will her great pride permit her to do so.'
Dulcie under the same roof with Shafto, and apparently the bosom friend of Hammersley's love! Florian had now a clue to some of the bitter remarks that, in moments of unintentional confidence, his superior had uttered from time to time.
That Shafto and Dulcie were in such close proximity to each other—meeting daily and hourly—filled Florian's mind with no small anxiety. He had no doubt of Dulcie's faith, trust, and purity; but neither had he any doubt of Shafto's subtle character and the mischief of which he was capable, and which he might work the helpless and unfortunate girl if he pursued, as she admitted he did, the odious and unwelcome love-making he had begun at Revelstoke.