But he suddenly affected to remember that he had something to say to his own groom, and as he turned back, I was ushered into the long and stately apartment. I had a dreamy sense of being amid many buhl tables and glass shades, much drapery, and several mirrors that reproduced everything, amid which I saw Estelle advancing cordially to meet me. She had a bright smile in her face, and held out both her hands; but I could scarcely speak. "Estelle," I whispered, "joy--joy! It is indeed joy, to see you once again!" "Then you quite forgive me, dearest Harry?" "Forgive you? O Estelle!" I exclaimed, in a low and passionate voice, as she turned up her adorable face to meet mine half-way. I knew from past experience that caresses from her meant much more than they did from most women; for Estelle, though proud and reticent, and apparently cold and calm, was reluctant to give and to accept them; so now I felt all the truth and sincerity of this reunion. "A lovers' quarrel is but love renewed;" we, however, had not quarrelled, but been cruelly wrenched asunder by the art and cunning of another. "Are you on duty, Mr. Hardinge?" said a voice; and from a window where she had been sitting, quite unseen and unnoticed by me, Winny Lloyd came forth, looking, as I thought, a little paler and sadder than when I had seen her last at Craigaderyn Court. "What makes you think I am on duty, dear Miss Lloyd?--or rather let me say, my dear, dear good friend and guardian angel Winifred, to whose intercession I owe all the happiness of a time like this," said I, pressing her hand caressingly between both of mine. "Because you are in undress uniform, of course," said she, almost petulantly. "I can wear no other costume now; we bid good-bye to mufti, the sable livery of civilisation, to-morrow." "How?" "We march at daybreak." "For the East?" "Yes; for the East, at last." "So soon?" exclaimed both girls at once. "The order came within an hour or little more, when Sir Madoc was with me." The eyes of the girls were full of sudden tears, and they gazed on me with an honest emotion of tenderness and real interest, that, considering the rare beauty and high position of both, were alike flattering and bewildering; and I felt that this was one of those moments when, to be a soldier or a sailor on the eve of departure to the seat of war, was indeed worth something. And Winifred, the impulsive Welsh fairy, so fresh-hearted, so simple in her motives, and sweet in her disposition, uttered something very like a little sob in her slender white throat, adding apologetically to Estelle, "We have been such old friends, Harry Hardinge and I." "You never wrote to me, Estelle," said I, softly, yet reproachfully. "I dared not; you remember our arrangement," she replied, with hesitation. "Nor was I invited here, like Mostyn, Clavell, and others; thus I had no opportunity of--"