Florian it was who stood before her, but though he gazed at her earnestly, wistfully, and with great pity in his tender eyes as he surveyed her pale face and deep mourning, he made no attempt to take the hands she yearningly extended towards him. She saw that he was in the uniform of a private soldier, over which he wore a light dust-coat as a sort of disguise, but there was no mistaking his glengarry--that head-dress which is odious and absurd for English and Irish regiments, and which in his instance bore a brass badge--the sphinx, for Egypt. He looked thin, gaunt, and pale, and anon the expression of his eye grew doubtful and cloudy. 'Florian!' exclaimed Dulcie in a piercing voice, in which something of upbraiding blended with tones of surprise and grief; and yet the fact of his presence seemed so unreal that she lingered for a moment before she flung herself into his arms, and was clasped to his breast. 'Oh, what is the meaning of this dress?' she asked, lifting her face and surveying him again. 'It means that I am a soldier--like him whose son I thought myself--a soldier of the Warwickshire Regiment,' replied Florian with some bitterness of tone. 'Oh, my God, and has it come to this!' said Dulcie wringing her interlaced fingers. 'Could not Shafto--your cousin----' 'Shafto cast me off--seemed as if he could not get rid of me too soon.' 'How cruel, when he might have done so much for you, to use you so!' 'I had no other resort, Dulcie; I would not stoop to seek favours even from him, and our paths in life will never cross each other again; but a time may come--I know not when--in which I may seek forgiveness of enemies as well as friends--the bad and the good together--for a soldier's life is one of peril.' 'Of horror--to me!' wailed Dulcie, weeping freely on his breast. 'This tenderness is strange, Dulcie! Why did you cast me off in my utter adversity and return to me my locket?' Dulcie looked up in astonishment. 'What _do_ you mean, Florian--have you lost your senses?' she asked in sore perplexity. 'Where have you come from last?' 'Plymouth; in a paper there I saw a notice of your terrible loss, and resolved to see, even if I could not speak with you.' 'And you came----' 'To see you, my lost darling, once again. Oh, Dulcie, I thought I should die if I left England and sailed for Africa without doing so. I got a day's leave and am here.' 'But why have you done this?' 'This--what?' 'Soldiering!' 'Penniless, hopeless, what else could I do?--besides, I thought you had cast me off when you sent me back this locket,' he added, producing the gift referred to. 'That locket was stolen from me on the night you left Revelstoke--literally wrenched from my neck, as I told you in my letter--the letter you never answered.' 'I received no letter, Dulcie--but your locket was taken from you by whom?' 'Shafto.'