out, "this is more
like yourself than any of it yet! I will serve you with a soldier's
faithfulness----"

"Let me hear no more of it!" says I. "You have got me to that pitch that
the bare name of soldier rises on my stomach. Our traffic is settled; I
am now going forth and will return in one half-hour, when I expect to
find my chambers purged of you."

I gave them good measure of time; it was my one fear that I might see
Catriona again, because tears and weakness were ready in my heart, and I
cherished my anger like a piece of dignity. Perhaps an hour went by; the
sun had gone down, a little wisp of a new moon was following it across a
scarlet sunset; already there were stars in the east, and in my
chambers, when at last I entered them, the night lay blue. I lit a taper
and reviewed the rooms; in the first there remained nothing so much as
to awake a memory of those who were gone; but in the second, in a corner
of the floor, I spied a little heap that brought my heart into my mouth.
She had left behind at her departure all that ever she had of me. It was
the blow that I felt sorest, perhaps because it was the last; and I fell
upon that pile of clothing and behaved myself more foolish than I care
to tell of.

Late in the night, in a strict frost, and my teeth chattering, I came
again by some portion of my manhood and considered with myself. The
sight of these poor frocks and ribbons, and her shifts, and the clocked
stockings, was not to be endured; and if I were to recover any constancy
of mind, I saw I must be rid of them ere the morning. It was my first
thought to have made a fire and burned them; but my disposition has
always been opposed to wastery, for one thing; and for another, to have
burned these things that she had worn so close upon her body seemed in
the nature of a cruelty. There was a corner cupboard in that chamber;
there I determined to bestow them. The which I did, and made it a long
business, folding them with very little skill indeed, but the more care;
and sometimes dropping them with my tears. All the heart was gone out of
me, I was weary as though I had run miles, and sore like one beaten;
when, as I was folding a kerchief that she wore often at her neck, I
observed there was a corner neatly cut from it. It was a kerchief of a
very pretty hue, on which I had frequently remarked; and once that she
had it on I remembered telling her (by way of a banter) that she wore my
colours. There came a glow o