She had learned from his own lips how Cecil loved her; but now Cecil was gone and never could return, and all her little world seemed sunless and cold--dark and desolate. She was no longer alternately amused and petulant, coquettish and light-hearted, for a settled moodiness had come over her--the gloom of sorrow, not anger; and though no one, not even Annabelle, surprised her in tears, her eyes sometimes bore unmistakable traces of recent weeping. A wild longing would, at times, come over her to see Cecil again--to hear his voice--to know what he was doing, or with whom he was at that particular moment; but the days passed vaguely and drearily on, while she thought of him, dreamt of him, talked in fancy to him, and wove such romances about him and herself, as only a young girl can weave. He was not very distant from her after all, and yet he might, so far as their intercourse was concerned, have been at the Antipodes; for no tidings, no news of him, ever came to Eaglescraig, and at last, to Mary, it began to seem as if the sweet bright chapter in her life, about Cecil Falconer, was utterly ended! And probably she would never love again, she thought; for that she had given him was the one love of a lifetime. But the general and Mrs. Garth thought they knew better; and that her ailment was only a girlish fancy, that naturally would pass away and be forgotten. CHAPTER XVI. ANNABELLE ERROLL. Now Leslie Fotheringhame, though disposed at first to be somewhat reticent on the subject of his previous intimacy with Annabelle Erroll, after a time confided their mutual story to Cecil Falconer. Thrown together as he and the latter were, in that lonely and isolated fort, the whole garrison of which, besides their own detachment, consisted only of a master gunner and a few old pensioners, it was natural that they should have their mutual confidences over their after-dinner cigars, and thus Falconer heard all about it from Fotheringhame. 'You see, old fellow, it came to pass in this way. 'My troop of Lancers was quartered in Perth Barracks, while the head-quarters were stationed at Piershill. I soon tired of all the little gaieties afforded by the Fair City; but the season was summer, and the Tay afforded me endless amusement for fly-fishing and boating; and, as one of my subs was on leave and the other on the sick-list, I was somewhat thrown on my own resources. 'I had a swift light shallop, in which I used to pull daily, when the tide or stream served, from the bridge upward past the wooded slopes of Kinnoull, and away for miles amid the loveliest and most luxuriant sylvan scenery in the world.