Hammersley has, you know, got his dismissal. I wonder how the poor fellow took it when Power gave him back his letters and his picture. How _you_ are to be treated remains to be seen; in any case, you certainly stand first favorite. I laid down the letter at this passage, unable to read farther. Here, then, was the solution of the whole chaos of mystery; here the full explanation of what had puzzled my aching brain for many a night long. These were the very letters I had myself delivered into Hammersley’s hands; this the picture he had trodden to dust beneath his heel the morning of our meeting. I now felt the reason of his taunting allusion to my “success,” his cutting sarcasm, his intemperate passion. A flood of light poured at once across all the dark passages of my history; and Lucy, too,--dare I think of her! A rapid thought shot through my brain. What if she had really cared for me! What if for me she had rejected another’s love! What if, trusting to my faith, my pledged and sworn faith, she had given me her heart! Oh, the bitter agony of that thought! To think that all my hopes were shipwrecked with the very land in sight. I sprang to my feet with some sudden impulse, but as I did so the blood rushed madly to my face and temples, which beat violently; a parched and swollen feeling came about my throat; I endeavored to open my collar and undo my stock, but my disabled arm prevented me. I tried to call my servant, but my utterance was thick and my words would not come; a frightful suspicion crossed me that my reason was tottering. I made towards the door; but as I did so, the objects around me became confused and mingled, my limbs trembled, and I fell heavily upon the floor. A pang of dreadful pain shot through me as I fell; my arm was rebroken. After this I knew no more; all the accumulated excitement of the evening bore down with one fell swoop upon my brain. Ere day broke, I was delirious. I have a vague and indistinct remembrance of hurried and anxious faces around my bed, of whispered words and sorrowful looks; but my own thoughts careered over the bold hills of the far west as I trod them in my boyhood, free and high of heart, or recurred to the din and crash of the battle-field, with the mad bounding of the war-horse, and the loud clang of the trumpet. Perhaps the acute pain of my swollen and suffering arm gave the character to my mental aberration; for I have more than once observed among the wounded in battle, that even when torn and mangled by grape from a howitzer, their ravings have partaken of a high feature of enthusiasm,--shouts of triumph and exclamations of pleasure, even songs have I heard, but never once the low muttering of despair or the half-stifled cry of sorrow and affliction. Such were the few gleams of consciousness which visited me; and even to such as these I soon became insensible.