'My own little Mary!' he murmured; 'on earth I have nothing whereby to be worthy of you—and I have won and retained your love!'
He read on quickly and nervously, only to return to the beginning, and read over and over again; but in some places whole lines had been obliterated.
'My darling, oh my darling!' he read in one place, 'we have traced you at last, and learned from the newspapers that you have escaped some awful peril, the details of which have not yet been made public. Write to us soon, and that you are coming home—write to the general, if you will. Oh, how happy he would be.'
He—what mystery—what change was here?
'And oh! my own Cecil, you ...... and how can I tell it to you, although I do so with joy, that now we know all—all about the giddiness that seized you at the ball, when talking with me, and how it was caused by Hew—-Hew—the infamous and cruel, who, as he has since confessed in writing, when it was supposed he was dying, that he drugged your wine—unseen by all!'
Cecil paused and started to his feet, and passed a hand across his throbbing forehead.
'Drugged—oh, villain!—villain—vile trickster!' he exclaimed, while tears, hot and salt, came unbidden to his eyes.
'Sir Piers,' continued the letter, 'the general, as he will always have himself called—the dear old thing!—went straight to the Horse Guards about it, and saw the commander-in-chief personally. You know his position, services, and influence; and so, dearest Cecil, you are again .....
'In the old corps,' said Cecil, as the letter here was again illegible, 'as the Gazette shows—Falconer—Montgomerie—why, and under which name is the remainder of my life to be passed?'
A whole paragraph followed, so sorely defaced that, with all his intense anxiety, Cecil could make nothing of it; and yet his future life might hinge on all that paragraph contained or detailed. But he failed to decipher it, save a word or two here and there—among them the names of 'father—mother—cousin—my own cousin,' and old John Balderstone was again and again referred to, in connection with some mysterious letters and documents he had found in some mysterious way to all appearance, and the whole bewildering passage concluded thus: