'Why? you will ask.
'Because it is difficult for a man that is poor, and has not even high family to recommend him, to be deemed other than a fortune-hunter, when he aspires to an undoubted heiress; but I shall tell you all about this when I rejoin, and Fate has dropped its pall between her and me.
'I have lost at écarté to Hew Montgomerie, and have given him my I.O.U. for a hundred and eighty pounds. Please lend me the money, like a dear old fellow, and I shall square it up somehow, ere we go back to head-quarters, as we are sure to do when the spring drills commence, as I loathe to be in this fellow's debt, and the sum is rather a crusher to me.
'I hope all is right with our detachment, and that you grant no passes for more than twenty-four hours, and look sharp after our fellows. I must close now, as we are about to have a spin through the country, as far as Kilwinning, to see the company of archers practise, for old Sir Piers has more than once been captain of the popinjay in June, and a winner of the silver arrow.'
He had closed and despatched his letter ere he remembered that he had omitted all mention, even by name, of Annabelle Erroll.
CHAPTER VII.
HEW'S 'MILD PLAY.'
Fotheringhame wrote promptly back to Falconer; his letter contained the 'needful,' and some bantering advice with reference to his love affair.
'For a man in full possession of his senses,' he wrote, 'you are evidently far gone indeed; and if matrimony alone will cure you, and cause thereby the loss of a thorough good fellow to the corps and the service, why the deuce don't you propose, and turn the flank of the cub named Hew, of whose "mild play" I would advise you to beware, especially as écarté is a very rooking kind of game. Cut in for the girl, if you are determined to chuck yourself away; and, if you play your cards in love as well as the cousin does at écarté, she will soon be nestling her blushing cheek on your waistcoat, and scratching her dainty nose on your diamond studs.'
'How can he write thus of such a creature as Mary Montgomerie!' muttered Falconer, indignantly.