Restored to his rank and to the old Cameronians--the cloud under which he had left the service, and which so nearly broke his heart, dispelled! The proceedings of that most fatal court-martial, which in his dreams had so often haunted him as a nightmare--cancelled, as if they had never been; how had all this come to pass, and who was the guardian angel that had brought it about? A fever of impatience possessed him. But he could not yet, with honour, quit the Servian army, though he had the power of resigning at any moment. He had no official letter; perhaps the Horse Guards knew not where he was--and letters, if any, for him, might be at the bottom of the Morava, as a mishap had befallen the mail; and more than all, a general action--a great battle, a decisive one for Servia, was confidently believed to be upon the tapis. Then he would think, if it should be all some mysterious mistake, and this notice referred, by a blunder, to some one else--a mistake, after all--after all! for he had been so long accustomed to the frowns of Fortune, that he feared she would never smile upon him permanently again. 'By the way, old fellow,' said Stanley, suddenly, 'there is a letter for you, in the care of Pelham; it may throw some light on all this.' 'A letter--official?' 'No.' 'A letter--from whom?' 'How should I know?' said Stanley, laughing; 'it is all over postmarks, anyway. The dragoon bringing the mails from Belgrade was shot by some Circassians, and fell into the Morava. Some woodman saved a bag or two, but the letters were nearly destroyed; and here comes Pelham with yours. We only got duns from London tradesmen, and laughed as we lit our pipes with them here.' CHAPTER XVII. MARY'S LETTER. Whether he thanked Pelham for what he brought him; how he bade the former and Stanley adieu, and in what terms he did so, Cecil never gave thought to, nor did he remember; he was only aware of one fact, that the letter placed in his hand, crumpled, sodden, spotted with blood of the Servian dragoon, and partly defaced by the water of the Morava, was from Mary--from Mary Montgomerie; and oblivious of all else the world contained, he rushed away, breathlessly, to the solitude of his own tent, to peruse it. Amid all it had undergone in transmission, the tinted paper on which it was written retained a subtle, but faint perfume. It was dated from Eaglescraig, and nearly a month back, and was sorely defaced and in some parts quite illegible. A letter from Mary! he had opened it, hastily yet tenderly, with tremulous fingers--for his hands, that never shook when holding sword or pistol, shook now like aspen twigs, and as he held the paper before him a mist crept over his sight; for he knew that her hand had touched the paper and had written the lines that were there. 'My own little Mary!' he murmured; 'on earth I have nothing whereby to be worthy of you--and I have won and retained your love!'