How she longed to go thither herself! So great was her impatience that not even the enchanted carpet of the Arabian tale, which transported its proprietor through the air to wherever he wished to be, in an instant, or the enchanted bridle of the famous Ayrshire 'Deil of Ardrossan,' the possessor of which could make his steed perform such wondrous feats of speed, would have sufficed her.
She was full of schemes now for communicating with Cecil, for discovering his exact whereabouts, and more than all, for bringing him safely and quickly home; while the general thought chiefly of his restoration to his former rank and position in the regiment.
Mary had seen in Robertson's charming little drama of 'Ours,' how the heroine made her way to the Crimea, amid the winter tempests, and found the wretched hut of her lover, Hugh Chalcot. Why should she not go to Servia and bring home the wanderer! Mrs. Garth would go, of course; and might not Fotheringhame and Annabelle, with whom matters were progressing so far now, make their wedding trip, if solicitors and guardians would only look sharp about contracts and settlements!
It would be quite a joyous journey if the general would only consent, for were not she and Cecil as solemnly engaged as a man and woman could be, and with the full consent and sanction of him, her only guardian! And the girl's heart seemed to go out to him, the absent and the suffering, with a futile and passionate longing.
Oh yes—yes; she saw it all, and had thought it and planned it so cleverly, with dear old John Balderstone! So they would go, by London, Vienna, and Belgrade, to—she continued, as he bent over the map—to where Cecil was, for they would never—never come home without him; and in anticipation, she imagined the joy, the wonder, and the whole excitement of their sudden meeting.
But one thing did provoke her a little!
It seemed as if, in the presence of Annabelle and the new phase of their love affair, the primary object of Fotheringhame's visit took somewhat of a secondary place, till the latter, like the whole household, was terribly startled one morning, when the wishes of all were frustrated and their hopes crushed by an appalling and bewildering Reuter's telegram, which Fotheringhame strove, but in vain, to conceal from Mary, and which ran thus:
'The ex-British officer who is now a prisoner in the camp at Deligrad, and under sentence, it is believed, of death for treason to King Milano (as the Prince of Servia names himself) and treachery to General Tchernaieff, is now known to be the same who so lately and so gallantly saved the life of the latter in the battle on the banks of the Morava, when Guebhard's troop of Lancers gave way and fled.'
'Now what on earth does all this mean?' exclaimed Fotheringhame, in blank dismay, as he read this over for the third time to Mrs. Garth, while Annabelle, who thought only of Mary, clung to his arm with her eyes full of tears.
'It is a sad—sad tragedy this of ours,' said the old lady, folding Mary to her breast; 'but, my darling pet—it may be some mistake; let us pray that it is so, and that light may come out of the darkness yet.'