After all they had mutually undergone, the sound of their own names and their own language, had in them so much of home and the past, that both were deeply moved; and heedless of those who were present, forgetting all about them in fact, the impulsive girl flung herself into his arms, and he pressed her to his breast. So, to the undemonstrative Orientals, they formed a very unexpected tableau. She had undergone so much and her agitations were so complicated, that for some time she was quite incapable of speech and could only sob hysterically. She was very pale and worn, but he was so too. "So you also are a prisoner--do you forgive me now, Denzil?" she asked in a low voice. "Forgive you--oh Rose, I could die for you!" he responded, passionately. How often in the visions of the night and in the reveries of the day--those trances of thought to which all at times abandon themselves--had Denzil pictured to himself Rose Trecarrel reclining in his arms, even as on that day by the lake, Rose so bright, so fair and beautiful, and now he held her in reality! But though she had deceived him once and might do so again, no such fear occurred to him then, and forgotten too were all the bantering remarks of Polwhele and Burgoyne (now, alas, no more) which had excited so much pique, jealousy, and fury in his heart. She was, he knew, so lonely in the world, and she looked so lovely and so helpless. After a time, she said, anxiously, "There has been great slaughter, I have heard; poor Papa, he has escaped I am sure, and dear Mab and Waller are safe, and all the rest?" "_All_ cannot have escaped!" was Denzil's vague response; "yet you have done so, and that is enough for me, darling." She now poured upon him questions, some of which he dreaded to answer. When and where was he taken prisoner? Whom of those she loved had he seen last? Of her father, of Mabel and Waller Denzil professed total ignorance. He only knew that the body of the poor General had disappeared, and of subsequent events he knew nothing save that many ladies and officers of rank were retained in Cabul, held there by Ackbar Khan, as hostages for the future evacuation of Jellalabad; so hope and lightness of heart began to dawn on Rose, for neither she nor Denzil were aware of the exact state of matters, or of all the calamities that had befallen their friends. "And Mabel--dear, dear, Mabel," she exclaimed in a touching voice, "how often do I dream of her, and fancy at times that I feel her cheek, wet with tears, against mine; for though but a little older than I, she has ever been as a mother to me, and these visions are passages of intense emotion, Denzil. Our mamma, who died so long ago, comes to me in my sleep and poor papa too, looking just as when I kissed him last, ere we went to rest, in that wretched tent in the snowy Pass; so my heart is wrung with suffering and I shed tears, Denzil--hot salt tears in my sleep--I, who used to be so merry and thoughtless!"