I had now served one campaign, though a short one; had seen the conclusion of another, ending in the total destruction of Cherbourg, and was on the eve of commencing a third, and yet found myself, despite all my day-dreams and lofty aspirations, unnoticed and unknown. I was graver now than before. It seemed to me that I had seen much of the world, and assuredly I had suffered much in the time that had elapsed between our landing at Cancalle Bay and the re-embarkation at Fort Galette. We were now at Wadhurst, a secluded place in Sussex. On the morning after we joined, Colonel Preston sent for me to the orderly-room, where there ensued a conversation which caused some speculation in the regiment, where my incognito was still preserved. The secret of who I was, or what I should have been, was now known to Kirkton only, for poor Jack Charters, as I have already said, was in his soldier's grave among the ruins of Cherbourg, and the only relic I possessed of him was a pair of sleeve-links. The bluff old colonel was standing with his spurred heels planted firmly on the hearthrug, and his hands behind his back, which was opposed to the fireplace, in the true orderly-room fashion, and he gave me a friendly nod as I entered. "You are aware, of course, Gauntlet," said he, "that money to purchase a cornetcy has been lodged for you." "With whom, sir?" I asked, in astonishment. "The regimental agents, Messrs. Cox and Mair, of Craig's Court, London." "By whom, colonel?" "Your friends--you should know best." "I have no friends--never had any," said I, bitterly. "It was lodged two months since," resumed the colonel, "and gazetted you would have been ere this, but for our doubt about your fate, poor Captain Lindsay having sent your name to the War Office as _missing_." I stood looking at the grave, kind, and soldierly old man with a stupified air. My cousin Aurora must have done this--I was certain of it--for no one else in all the world knew of me, or cared for me; but I was too proud to accept of this donation even from her--from the usurper of my patrimony, for such I deemed her--and urged the colonel to write at once to the regimental agents, desiring them to return the money to the depositor thereof, whoever he or she might he. I said this so haughtily, so bitterly, and peremptorily, and with such a flush on my cheek, that the adjutant and orderly-room clerks, who were fussing among docquets of papers and returns, looked up with surprise, and the old colonel, after carefully wiping a great pair of spectacles, put them on his copper-coloured nose, and surveyed me from head to foot with extreme coolness and curiosity. "Zounds! Gauntlet," said he, "you are a very extraordinary fellow--very! Have you no wish to rise in the service?" "By my own merit, sir, I have every wish, but not by the money--(of others, I was about to say, but added)--the money that should have been mine." "Should--hum."