Now Leslie Fotheringhame, though disposed at first to be somewhat reticent on the subject of his previous intimacy with Annabelle Erroll, after a time confided their mutual story to Cecil Falconer.
Thrown together as he and the latter were, in that lonely and isolated fort, the whole garrison of which, besides their own detachment, consisted only of a master gunner and a few old pensioners, it was natural that they should have their mutual confidences over their after-dinner cigars, and thus Falconer heard all about it from Fotheringhame.
'You see, old fellow, it came to pass in this way.
'My troop of Lancers was quartered in Perth Barracks, while the head-quarters were stationed at Piershill. I soon tired of all the little gaieties afforded by the Fair City; but the season was summer, and the Tay afforded me endless amusement for fly-fishing and boating; and, as one of my subs was on leave and the other on the sick-list, I was somewhat thrown on my own resources.
'I had a swift light shallop, in which I used to pull daily, when the tide or stream served, from the bridge upward past the wooded slopes of Kinnoull, and away for miles amid the loveliest and most luxuriant sylvan scenery in the world.
'One day the heat was very great, and, ceasing to row, I lay back in the stern-sheets of my boat, with a cigar between my lips, and let her float, lazily, on the current of the stream, which flowed between its wooded banks deeply, silently, and majestically. On every hand around me were a long series of varied hills covered with picturesque foliage of every shade of green, the vista everywhere terminated by the more remote mountains, the rich tints of which were softened in the blue haze and by the distance.
'At a bend of the river my boat partially grounded, but I felt too lazy to shove off, and lay there under the shadows cast upon the bright stream by the overreaching elms, oaks, and silver birches, among the blended foliage of which the blue doves were cooing, and where the wild violets and jasmine grew close to the water's-edge. On all the river I thought there could be no lovelier spot than this. Save the stillness of its flow, and the hum of the mountain honey-bee among the wild flowers of the wood, in and out of the gueldre-roses and foxglove-bells, there was no sound in the air, as I lay there in a kind of daydream, with my arms resting idly on my sculls, till the voice of a girl, singing close by, roused me at once to attention.
'Sweetly she sung, and seemed to give her whole soul and pathos to the song. She thought no ear save her own was within hearing; but for a time the singer remained unseen by me.
'"'Love me always—love me ever,'
Said a voice low, sad, and sweet;
'Love me always—love me ever,'
Memory will the words repeat."
'And in truth, Falconer, I give them by an effort of memory now, it is so long since I heard and read them: