_Mat._ Yes; it’s sad when that’s happened. Tell me all about it. _Car._ Swear that, come what may, no torture shall ever induce you to reveal the secret I am going to confide to you? _Mat._ Oh, I’ll swear that with pleasure. _Car._ Will you believe me when I tell you that--I have loved? _Mat._ Oh yes! _Car._ And that I have been loved in return? _Mat._ Well, ye--es. Oh yes; it’s possible. _Car._ He was a poet-soldier, fighting the Paynim foe in India’s burning clime--a glorious songster, who swept the lute with one hand, while he sabred the foe with the other! _Mat._ Was he in the band? _Car._ The band! He was a major-general! (_Rises._) _Mat._ Oh! Handsome? _Car._ I know not. I never saw him. _Mat._ Ye never saw him? _Car._ I never saw his face; but--I have seen his soul! _Mat._ What’s his soul like? _Car._ Like? Like the frenzied passion of the antelope! Like the wild fire of the tiger-lily! Like the pale earnestness of some lovesick thunder-cloud that longs to grasp the fleeting lightning in his outstretched arms! _Mat._ Was he often like that? _Car._ Always! _Mat._ A pleasant man in furnished lodgings! And where did ye see his soul? _Car._ (_sits_). He poured it into the columns of the _Weybridge Watchman_, the local paper of the town that gave him birth. Dainty little poems, the dew of his sweet soul, the tender frothings of his soldier brain. In them I read him, and in them I loved him! I wrote to him for his autograph--he sent it. I sent him my photograph, and directly he saw it he proposed in terms that cloyed me with the sweet surfeit of their choice exuberance, imploring me at the same time to reply by telegraph. Then, maiden-like, I longed to toy and dally with his love. But Anglo-Indian telegraphic rates are high; so, much against my maiden will, I answered in one word--that one word, yes! _Mat._ And ye’ve engaged yerself to a man whose face ye’ve niver seen? _Car._ I’ve seen his soul! _Mat._ And when d’ye think ye’ll see his body? _Car._ Alas, never! for (pity me) he is faithless! We corresponded for a year, and then his letters ceased; and now, for eighteen months, no crumb nor crust of comfort has appeased my parched and thirsting soul! Fortunately my solicitor has all his letters. _Mat._ Oh, I see. And when does the action come off? _Car._ I know not. We have advertised for him right and left. Twenty men of law are on his track, and my brother Bulstrode, an attorney’s clerk, carries a writ about him night and day. Thus my heart-springs are laid bare that every dolt may gibe at them--the whole county rings with my mishap--its gloomy details are on every bumpkin’s tongue! This--this is my secret. Swear that you will never reveal it! _Mat._ Oh! but ye’ll get thumping damages when ye _do_ find him. _Car._ It may be so. The huckstering men of law appraise my heart-wreck at five thousand pounds! _Mat._ Well, and I wish ye may get it, dear! _Car._ Thank you, oh! thank you for that wish.