'Duncan's dream, or late entertainment, recurred vividly to him in all its details; he could point to the exact spot where the tent had stood, but not a trace of it was to be found in any way, and no more was thought about the matter by the few in whom he confided till that time twelvemonth, when we found ourselves before Jhansi, with the army sent under Lord Strathnairn to avenge the awful slaughter and butchery there of the officers of the 12th Native Infantry by the mutineers, from whom we took the place by storm; and in the conflict, at the very hour of the morning in which Duncan Skene had had that weird meeting and given that terrible promise, and on the very spot where the supposed tent stood, he was killed by a cannon shot; and just about the same time I received the infernal bullet which is lodged in me still. 'That is a story beyond the common, Roland, for Skene of ours was a fellow above all superstition, and wild though his dream--if a dream it was--he was wont to relate it in a jocular way to more than one--myself among the number.' Was it the case that the mention of young Skene as a new admirer--perhaps more than an admirer--of Hester had acted as a species of fillip to Roland? It almost seemed so, for after that there was more tenderness if possible in his manner to her, and he did not fail to remark that he saw music and books lying about, presented to Hester by the gentleman in question; and her father muttered to himself with growing satisfaction, for he loved Roland well: 'Now they are all day together, just as they used to be; and see, he is actually carrying her watering pan for the rosebuds. Well, Roland, that is better fun, I suppose, than carrying the lines of Tel-el-Kebir!' And the old gentleman laughed at his own conceit till he felt his Jhansi bullet cause an aching where it lodged. This companionship filled the heart of the girl with supreme happiness, and more than once she recalled the words of a writer who says of such times: 'I think there are days when one's whole past life seems stirred within one, and there come to the surface unlooked-for visions and pictures, with gleams from the depths below. Are they of memory or of hope? Or is it possible that those two words mean one thing only, and are one at last when our lives are rounded and complete?' One evening, after being absent in the city, Roland suddenly, when he and Hester were alone, opened a handsome morocco case wherein reposed, in their dark-blue satin bed, a necklace of brilliant cairngorms set in gold with a beautiful pendant composed of a single Oriental amethyst encircled by the purest of pearls. 'A little gift for you, Hester,' said he; 'I am soon going to Earlshaugh, and I hope to see you wear these there,' added he, clasping the necklace round her slender throat. 'Oh, Roland!' exclaimed Hester in a breathless voice, while her colour changed, 'can I accept such a gift?'