"Estelle--Estelle!" I exclaimed in a low voice, and my arms went out into vacancy, to fall back on the camp-bed whereon I reclined. Abandoned for another; forgotten it might too probably--nay, must be. I stared up, and looked from the triangular door of the tent over the wilderness of zigzags, the sand-bags, and fascines of the trenches; over the gun-batteries to the white houses and green domes of Sebastopol, and all down the long valley of Inkermann, where the graves of the dead lay so thick and where the Russian pickets were quietly cooking their dinners; but I could see nothing distinctly. The whole features of the scenery seemed blurred, faint, and blended, for my head was swimming, my heart was sick, and all, all this was the doing of Estelle! Did no memory of sweet Winifred Lloyd come to me in my desolation of the heart? None! I could but think of the cold-blooded treachery of the one I had lost. My letter! I suddenly remembered it, and tore it open, thinking that the writer, whose hand, as I have said, I failed to recognise, might cast some light upon the matter; and to my increasing bewilderment, it proved to be from Winifred herself. A letter from her, and to _me_; what could it mean? But the first few words sufficed to explain. Craigaderyn, . . . . "My dear Captain Hardinge,--Papa has sprained his whip hand when hunting with Sir Watkins Vaughan, and so compels me to write for him." (Why should compulsion be necessary? thought I.) "You will, no doubt, have heard all about Lady Estelle's marriage by this time. She was engaged to Lord Pottersleigh _before_ she came here, it would seem, and matters were brought to an issue soon after your transport sailed. She wished Dora and me to be among her bridesmaids, but we declined; nor would papa have permitted us, had we desired to be present at the ceremony. She bade me say, if I wrote to you, that you must forgive her, as she is the victim of circumstances; that she shall ever esteem and love you as a brother, and so forth; but I agree with papa, who says that she is a cold-hearted jilt, undeserving of any man's love, and that he 'will never forgive her, even if he lived as long as Gwyllim ap Howel ap Jorwerth ap Tregaian,' the Old Parr of Wales.