Jerry was rather grave, for Bella had been piqued by his absence, and received him, he thought, rather coldly, which led him to fear there 'was some other fellow in the field;' but anon Bella began to rally him, for she could not but remember that the letter he had written on the night before Coomassie was entered, amounted quite to a declaration. 'I begin to sicken of the world and all its bitterness, Bella,' said he, a little irrelevantly, on which she sang, softly, 'Oh, what shall I be at fifty, If I am then alive, If I find the world so bitter When I am barely twenty-five?' 'I wonder if you will be so merry when we meet again, years hence, if ever,' said Jerry, almost angrily. 'Years hence--what do you mean, Jerry--for I must call you Jerry as of old, if you adopt this tone?' said she, regarding his now grave face attentively. 'I go to the Horse Guards to-morrow to arrange about an exchange for India.' 'Why?' 'Can you ask--when you know that I am a ruined and beggared man?' He was looking doggedly out of the window, and did not see how her sensitive lips quivered, and how her shapely bodice was heaving with the painful pulsations of her warm and affectionate heart; for Bella--impulsive Bella--felt that if she said only a little more she must break down altogether; and the muscles of her slender throat ached with the efforts she made to keep back her desire to weep. 'Ruined--Jerry--you?' she said, after a pause. 'You know how, and why; the past is over--at an end, and for ever; but do think of me kindly, Bella, when I am far away from you--for my own kindred are few and cold--yea, seem to have little heart for me.' 'Jerry, dear Jerry,' said the girl, in a low voice, 'ere this, I thought you would have asked me to marry--to--to marry you.' 'I dared not, Bella.' 'Why?' 'Lest you might misunderstand me.' 'But you--you love me?' 'God alone knows how well!' 'Then, Jerry, will _you_ marry me?' she said, while her sweet voice sank into a pleading whisper; 'I have always loved you.' Jerry caught her wildly in his arms. 'Bella--my wife--my own little wife at last!' exclaimed Jerry, in a rather broken voice, as they kissed each other solemnly and passionately, for all doubts between them were ended now. 'Oh, Bella darling,' said Jerry, after sundry incoherences had been indulged in, 'though far, far away from you, I often dreamed of such an hour as this--for I was always with you in the spirit.' 'I would rather have had you, as I have you now, you dear, provoking old Jerry, in the flesh,' replied Bella, with one of her arch and waggish smiles. 'It is much more satisfactory.'