Tobacco! Him! O was there in all the world quite such another man, so brave, so chivalrous—and so unmodish?
Here in the sleeve was a rent, even as the Sergeant had said, and very featly mended by the Sergeant's own skilful fingers; a jagged rent it had been and even now she could see a faint stain—she shivered, for now she saw other like stains were here also. So my lady shuddered, yet, doing so, leaned nearer and drew the threadbare sleeve about her snowy neck and thus espied the yawning side-pocket. My lady peeped into it, hesitated, then plunged slim hand into those cavernous depths.
His clay pipe. His silver tobacco-box. A mass of torn paper. A letter sealed with his signet, and my lady sighed rapturously for it was addressed thus:
"To Lady Elizabeth Carlyon."
With this in one hand, the Ramillie coat in the other, she crossed to her great high bed and, seated there, the coat beside her on laced pillow, drew the candles a little nearer, broke the seals and read:
"DEAR LADY AND MY LOVE,
When you receive this I shall be beyond seas and 'tis like I shall not see you again for I leave suddenly and unknown to any.
All this summer afternoon I have sat here striving to tell you why this must be, and now my labour is lost for I have destroyed my letter since it doth seem that it might perchance have pained you to read it almost as much as me to write. So I have destroyed it since I would spare you pain now and ever. Of late I have been sick, not of body so much as mind, and mayhap once or twice have suffered harsh thoughts of thee, but to-day these are gone and out of mind, and love for thee burns within me true and steadfast as it shall do until I cease to be—aye, and beyond. For if I have grieved of late yet have I known joys undreamed and have looked and seen what Happiness is like unto, wherefore I do not repine that Happiness hath not stayed. Love and I have lived so long estranged that now methinks I am not fitted, so do I go back to the things I understand. But Happiness hath stooped to me a little while to brush me with his pinions ere he fled and hath left with me a glory shall never fade. So now, dear maid that I do love and ever shall beyond mine understanding, here do I take my leave of thee. I ride alone henceforth yet shall I not be solitary since thy sweet memory goeth beside me even unto my journey's end.
JOHN D'ARCY."
And now my lady turned and looked upon that war-worn coat through a mist of tears and sinking down, laid soft cheek upon its tarnished braid and lay thus a long while, the letter clasped to swelling bosom. Then starting up she gathered those torn scraps of paper and strove to piece them together; but they were inextricably mixed, yet here and there the fragment of some sentence would leap to meet her.