'My darling,' she said in a broken voice, 'if I had only known of this--how different all would have been--how much spared us! Why did you not tell me--your sister----' 'I was not aware how much appearances were against me; and with you, I became jealous of some imaginary person. I shrunk from the task at first, and you--you returned, unread, the letter which would have explained all. But you are glad now, dearest?' 'Glad! O Leslie, to any other than you, I might refrain from admitting that I have never--since the day we parted--ceased to love you; and have now learned to love you more than ever.' 'And I love you, Annabelle, with the passion that comes only once in a man's life-time!' And so, for a time, it may be inferred that this pair were pretty oblivious of the absent Cecil in Servia, and his interests at home. CHAPTER X. THE TELEGRAM. In her joy and impulsiveness, Mary actually embraced Leslie Fotheringhame, and kissed him when she heard from Annabelle of the reconciliation, and explanation of all that seemed so unpleasant and mysterious. 'Had she not loved you--yes, loved you dearly--do you think she would have felt all this so much--so keenly and so bitterly!' said Mary to Fotheringhame. And hearty were the congratulations of the general, who was pleased that Eaglescraig should be the scene of such an event, though love and lovers' quarrels were somewhat beyond his sympathies now; but he liked Fotheringhame, as a friend of the absent Cecil, and he had a strong regard for Annabelle, the only daughter of an old and valued Indian comrade; so the episode immediately brought to memory one of his inevitable 'up-country' reminiscences. 'Talking of lovers' quarrels,' said he, as they idled over the dessert; 'egad! I remember one which was not without some strange features. When we were in Lucknow, under Inglis--just about the time of the first outbreak of the mutiny--a pair of lovers met, who had quarrelled in some jealous pique at a ball in Chowringhee. Olive Vane was a pretty brunette, daughter of an old Sudder judge, and her Romeo was Bob Acharn--cousin of Acharn of Ours, a lieutenant of the Bengal Native Infantry. There was not a better fellow at pig-sticking, or shooting, in all India than Bob; and I remember that, at Jodpore, he watched and waited for days and nights to pot a man-eater that had made a whole village desolate. 'As people don't lose time in love affairs in India, it was fully arranged that--the quarrel made sweetly up--the lovers should be married on the 31st of May, though many there were who said that the time was not one for marrying or giving in marriage, for the rising of the Pandies at Meerut, some time before, had sent a thrill of terror through every European breast in India, and at Lucknow, as elsewhere, it was uncertain when the secret hate of the natives might burst into a flame.