Her affirmative sent him away relieved at the more human interest in her face. A minute afterwards he returned with a little brocaded packet looking as if it had lain in damp lodgings. "I hope it isn't hurt," he said lightly; "but having no servant here, my clothes have dried as best they could, and it feels rather pulpy. Open it and see what parting gift that inexplicable compound of fidelity and treachery left behind him. He had a great admiration for you, Belle." "It is not for me after all. It is for you," she replied after a pause, as she smoothed out the long blue envelope which had been rolled round a smaller packet. "At least I think so. The writing above is smudged, but 'Marsden, 101st Sikhs' is quite clear. Look at it, while I open the other." He took the letter from her calmly, without a misgiving. His first glance at it, however, roused a sudden doubt, a sudden memory; but ere he had grasped the meaning of his own thoughts, Belle's hand was on his arm, and her voice appealing to him in a new, glad tone of hope. "Oh Philip, it is Dick's ring! I have seen him wear it,--so often; I can't be mistaken. It is Dick's ring,--can he be alive,--is he,--do you think he can be alive still?" For an instant they stood so, she like a resurrection of her girlhood, he stupidly staring at a curious dark stain blotting out part of the address. Then the truth began to dawn upon him, and his hand clenched in a growing passion. "No!" he said fiercely, and his voice was almost a whisper at first. "No! This is his will,--the will I would not take,--Afzul! My God! Afzul had it all the time! He must have been in the Pass,--Ah! I remember,--the _subadar_,--those others, all _his_ enemies,--He must have killed the boy,--He must have killed the boy!" His horror, his anger, burst bounds. He forgot everything else in the wild hatred which rose up in him against the murderer, as he strode up and down the room, silent for the most part, but every now and again breaking out into a passionate regret. Why had he been so blind? To think that all the time this man had nursed him, all the time he had taken so many benefits from that hand, it had been red with poor, brave Dick's blood. Why had he not shot the scoundrel when he had the chance?