Often he opened the clasp of her ring--Ellon's ring--and gazed upon her tiny lock of hair, now faded and withered by the heat it had undergone when 'up country' in the Land of the Sun, and on her pictured face he gazed till his eyes ached and burned with the intensity of his longing to see the features smile, the lips unclose, in fancy. We are told that if a man, 'overborne by any grief or pain--not the more endurable because no outward sign can be discerned--should go forth into a crowd to seek for solace, the chances are that he will return in a more discontented frame of mind than that in which he set out, simply from realising the fact how infinitely little his own sufferings affect the most of the world at its work or play.' Amid the bustle, gaiety, and business of the crowded camp at Aldershot, Bevil Goring realised all this to the fullest extent. Day after day went by and brought no news of Alison, either to Goring or to Laura Dalton, whom he saw frequently, and hope deferred was making the heart of the young officer very 'sick' indeed; but, though he wrote a very important letter to his solicitors at Gray's Inn Square concerning certain properties at Chilcote, he went there no more. In the words of L.E.L., he could no more 'To the loved haunt return, Love's happy home; and touch the tender chord, And softly whisper there the little word, The name whereat fond memories shall burn, That parting vows record.' CHAPTER XIV. BELLA'S DOT. Lady Julia Wilmot had been in hope that when the Ashantee 'affair' was over, Jerry would settle down, 'marry money,' free his ancestral seat from encumbrance, and take a proper pride in it; but for a time after the capture of Coomassie it had seemed that she was to be afflicted by a double calamity--that the estate was lost, and Jerry might never return. It was not in her aristocratic nature to be very much moved about anything. Excitement or enthusiasm of any kind was 'bad form,' she deemed. Thus, if she was not plunged in profound grief when she heard of the poor fellow's supposed death, neither was she greatly excited with joy when she heard that he was safe and coming home again. To this noble daughter of twenty earls, an only son more or less in the world really seemed of no great consequence, unless it were, if he 'married money,' to serve her own ends. When tidings of Jerry's death came, she had attired herself most becomingly in fashionable mourning of the requisite depth of wear, as understood by the drapers in Regent Street. Round her white throat were narrow tuckers of yellowish-white lace, and a rustling train, spread over a crinolette, floated behind her. Now that he was safe, her mourning was relinquished, almost with a sigh, we fear, it was so becoming; and Floss's mother-of-pearl basket, which had been duly lined with black silk, was now refitted with blue satin.