Your letter, my beloved Evelyn, I have only just received: through some mistake, it has been lying at my agent’s, in Calcutta; and I have only now been able to press it to my heart and lips. Thanks, a thousand thanks, for the sweet hope that letter contains. If God spare this poor life, it shall be devoted to render my Evelyn forever happy. Do not speak of forgiveness; it is I that ought to ask pardon, for having mistrusted the woman I respect and revere most upon earth. Can she forget a foolish jealousy, occasioned by her beauty and fascination? I am making a writing-table out of the stump of a tree. To-morrow, we expect to storm Lucknow. Our chief, Sir Colin, has kindly placed me on his staff. The thought of you, sweetest, will stimulate me to dare everything. I fervently trust in God that my life may be spared, now that it is of value to you; but if, in the divine decrees of an all-wise Providence, I am fated to fall—then, Evelyn, my wife, before Heaven—farewell! Do not mourn for one who will have died the death of a hero. Shed a few gentle, pitying tears, and then _be happy_, and forget me. No—do not forget. Remember me as one to whom you were dearer than all but his honor—one who will ever watch and guard you, even from that world beyond the tomb, to which we are all hastening. One curl of your soft brown hair and your miniature have never left my heart. If these are returned, you will know that a spirit has passed away, whose last thought in dying was of you. Again, and again—Farewell? God forever bless you, my own—my bride! Your loving REGINALD. Short happiness did this letter bring to our hearts. _It_ also had been long delayed on the road. Three days after its receipt Evelyn entered my room ere it was day, pale—her hair dishevelled, her eyes red and swelled with weeping. “Reginald is dead,” said she, “I have seen him. Nay, speak not,” she added, seeing I would have chided her folly, “I have murdered him. Had I consented to a marriage he would have left the army, and would never have been sent to India. As I lay awake last night, I tell you I saw him as plain as I do you. He approached the bed, looked lovingly upon me, and I saw a wound in his breast. Suddenly the form melted into air. I had no fear. I wished he would again appear. I should have spoken to him. But nothing more occurred.” Evelyn returned to her bed, not to leave it for some time. The first day she arose from it, weak, but calm and collected, she said to me, “Now, Mary, you may give me the lock of hair and the miniature, and read me the account of my young hero’s death. I can hear all—the worst is past.”