I have the honour to be,
My Lord, &c. &c.
HENRY TORRENS,
Mil Sec."
"Right Hon. Lord Lisle,
of Inchavon."
Alice wrung her hands, and wept in all the abandonment of woe. The last reed she had leant on had snapped—her last hope was gone, and she knew that she should never behold Ronald more. The next muster-day (then the 24th of every month) arrived; and, as being still "absent without leave," he was superseded, and his name appeared no longer on the list of the regiment. It was sad intelligence for his friends in Perthshire; but it was upon one gentle-loving and timid heart, that this sudden stroke fell most heavily. Poor Alice! she grew very sad, and long refused to be comforted. As a drowning man clings to straws, so clung Alice to every hope and chance of Ronald's return, until the letter of Sir Henry Torrens drove her from her last stronghold.
Days rolled on and became weeks, and weeks rolled on to months, and in her own heart the poor girl was compelled to acknowledge or believe, what her friends had long concluded, that Ronald Stuart was numbered with the dead. It was a sad blow to one whose joyous heart had been but a short time before full almost to overflowing with giddy and romantic visions of love and happiness. Under this severe mental shock she neither sickened nor died, and yet she felt as deeply and poignantly as mortal woman could suffer.
Few or none, perhaps, die of love or of sorrow, whatever poets and interested romancers may say to the contrary. But as this is not the work of the one or the other, but a true memoir or narrative, the facts must be told, however contrary to rule, or to the expectation of my dear readers.
In course of time the sorrow of Alice Lisle became more subdued, the bloom returned to her faded cheek, and she used to laugh and smile,—but not as of old. She was never now heard to sing, and the sound of her harp or piano no more awoke the echoes of the house. She was content, but far from being happy. When riding or rambling about with Virginia or Louis, she could never look down from the mountains on the lonely tower and desert glen of Isla without symptoms of the deepest emotion, and she avoided every path that led towards the patrimony of the Stuarts.