'All love you,' said Mrs. Garth, kissing him on the cheek. And while pressing Mary's hand, Cecil replied by the quotation: '"The love of all is but a small thing to the love of _one_!" Mary had been possessed by a crave to see and to comfort him, if possible; hence the unexpected visit. Like balm poured upon a wound, it had comforted him, and assured him of her love unchanged whatever happened; but save in that instance, nothing had come of the visit, and the future was as vague and uncertain as ever. Cecil did not leave his room at the request of Fotheringhame, who had a wholesome or nervous dread of anything approaching a scene or situation, and yet he was soon to bear a part in one himself! Clinging to Mrs. Garth, how Mary got out of the fortress she scarcely knew; hurrying down the steep stone staircase, past the gun-batteries, on which the great-coated sentinels now trod to and fro, and then through the deep archway (where whilom the double portcullis hung), and under the shadow of the stupendous Half Moon Battery. Neither, perhaps, did Annabelle Erroll, for she had painful thoughts of her own--bitter, jealous and fiery thoughts--all unlike those of Mary, in whose heart there gushed up a passion of love, sorrow and pity, that filled with hot and blinding tears the gentle eyes her close-drawn veil concealed. They had not come in the carriage, but by a common cab, and as Fotheringhame, with great tenderness, was leading Annabelle to it, she saw--beyond a doubt--the veiled woman of the ball passing _in_ by the barrier gate. Beyond a little nervous start as she passed them--a start felt probably by Annabelle, whose hand rested on the arm of Fotheringhame. He gave no other sign of that person's vicinity; but the sign was sufficient to make Annabelle withdraw her hand instantly, and receive his farewell adieux with a brevity and coldness that rather bewildered him. But the voice of Leslie Fotheringhame came indistinctly to her ears--he seemed to be speaking a great way further off than that barrier gate, where the Cameronian sentinel stood, and she could see the great battery with its cannon and port-holes towering overhead, as through a dull and misty haze. What did it all mean? CHAPTER X. GONE! It is said that 'there is nothing so difficult to believe as a certainty, till we have lived long enough to feel that it is a certainty, and not a delusion;' but Cecil Falconer soon realised the fact of his ruin. With much genuine commiseration of manner and great kindness of tone, the adjutant had acquainted him that he had been dismissed generally--not specifically--and that her Majesty had no further occasion for his services, and that the general order, thereanent, would be out in a day or two! Cecil had boasted of the strength given to him by Mary's visit; yet, when the crash came, his strength and spirit alike gave way.