In the fever of his impatience and doubts of all he wished elucidated, he drank some wine, but it seemed destitute of strength and coolness; he tasted some grapes, and they failed to moisten his tongue; he lighted a choice cigar, but its soothing influence was gone.
Mary's letter, delicious though it was to receive, meant much more than he could extract from it. What was all this new mystery of which he had so suddenly become the centre? Would she write again—and when?
He must write to her; but where might she be at that precise time? At Eaglescraig, without doubt. Their love was one that had made them cleave unto each other in the teeth of all adverse circumstances, and hope naturally began to brighten anew in Cecil's heart, as he turned alternately from the puzzling notice in the Gazette to Mary's equally puzzling letter.
'Patience,' he would mutter; 'patience, and in a little time all will be made clear.'
But nevertheless he grew more impatient than ever.
How much of caressing tenderness, as well as information of importance, had been obliterated in Mary's letter by the envious water of the Morava! When would he obtain a key, a clue to it all?
The soft, bright dreams that are so frequent in our earlier years, and form a part of our existence then, and which as time goes on become greyer, duller, and farther apart, and less tinted with sunshine, were coming back to Cecil's heart again, as he sat in his tent alone, and striving to think it all out—the new mystery that enveloped him.
He lost no time in writing to her in reply, a long and passionate letter; all the longer and more passionate that he had heard nothing of her for such a length of time, and had all the pent-up emotion of his heart to pour forth. Though he knew not what was meant by the discoveries to which she referred, he tendered through her all his thanks to the general for his kindness, and, in the exuberance of his joy, felt that he could even forgive Hew for the malice he had displayed and the terrible wrong he had done him. Home! he would start for home the moment he could hear from her again, or get some details, some official letter of instructions, on the subject that perplexed him; and he deplored that as matters stood he could not just then, with honour, quit the army of the Morava. Why, he did not tell her—that the thunderclouds of a great battle were soon to darken the air around Deligrad!
The rumour spread rapidly, with many exaggerations, that the 'Herr Capitan' in Tchernaieff's own Dragoons was an officer in the British army, and it greatly enhanced the importance with which Cecil was viewed in the Servian camp.
If, ere he could leave that arena with honour, he was doomed to fall in battle now, it seemed to him hard to have to quit life so suddenly, when it became full of new value, and seemed more worth living!