'You colour painfully, Cecil, old fellow,' said he, patting him kindly on the shoulder; 'but, if this gazette refers to you----' 'It does--it must--but why am I named Montgomerie?' exclaimed Cecil, impetuously. 'I have the name of Falconer.' 'You have been in some scrape perhaps--who among us has lived a life without pain, or who among us has been without reproach?' 'I have lived a life--latterly at least--that has had much of pain in it; and if there was any reproach, it was unmerited--all!' 'I can well believe it, and congratulate you heartily,' exclaimed Stanley, clasping his passive hand, while Cecil, still as one in a dream, muttered about the name of 'Montgomerie?' 'By Jove,' said Stanley, as a sudden light broke upon him; 'I remember your affair now, and the noise it made at mess-tables. Well, well--court-martials are not infallible--neither are the Horse Guards authorities, for the matter of that. I remember when we were lying in the Wellington Barracks, how a fellow in the Coldstreams--but have another glass of wine!' 'Oh, Stanley,' said Cecil, in a broken voice, 'you do not know--and never, never may you know--what it is, and has been, to live on day after day, under the cloud that cast a gloom on my life! To bear, with a dull aching of the heart--to exist under a cloud and unexplainable shadow, trying by some brilliant act, hoping by well-done service, to redeem my name in this----' 'Well--in this devil of a country, to which Pelham and I came, for a new sensation, in search of a spree, in fact. I know the world, Cecil--it is a cruel world, even to the strong; and the best of us get into scrapes with it.' 'But I got into none--at least, none that I can understand or explain,' replied Cecil, a little incoherently. 'Yet you were--were----' 'Dismissed!' 'Poor fellow--I remember well; and this notice?' 'Refers to me--it must--the sentence of dismissal has been cancelled; though I cannot understand how, or through whom. I thought I had not a friend in the world--save one,' he added, as he thought of Mary. 'How did all this cursed evil come about?' And Cecil told him all--at least so far as he knew. 'I see it all, as plain as a pikestaff!' exclaimed Stanley, when the latter concluded; 'something has turned up--something new come to light, and they've reinstated you. You were dismissed generally, not specifically, and so rendered incapable of serving Her Majesty again; it makes all the difference in the world! Another bumper of wine, to re-wet the old commission!' Cecil drained the glass like one who was sore athirst, for he was then under considerable mental excitement.