e was alone.

Not a little puzzled--for had she not taken fond leave of Maurice
shortly before ten o'clock, when he had told her that his orders were
to quit the ball then and report himself at once at headquarters. He had
seemed very despondent, Crystal thought, and the words which he spoke
when finally he kissed her, had in them all the sadness of a last
farewell. Crystal even had felt a tinge of remorse--when she saw how sad
he was--that she had not responded more warmly to his kiss. It almost
seemed as if her heart rebelled against it, and when he pressed her with
his accustomed passionate ardour to his breast, she had felt a curious
shrinking within herself, a desire to push him away, even though her
whole heart went out to him with pity and with sorrow.

And now here was this letter. Crystal was a long time before she made up
her mind to open it: the paper--damp with the rain--seemed to hold a
certain fatefulness within its folds. At last she read the letter, and
long after she had read it she sat at the open window, listening to the
dreary, monotonous patter of the rain, and to the distant sounds of
moving horses and men, the rattle of wheels, the bugle calls, the
departure of the allied troops to meet the armies of the great
adventurer on the billowing plains of Belgium.

This is what Maurice had written to her a few moments before he left;
and it must have taken him some time to pen the lengthy epistle.

"MY BEAUTIFUL CRYSTAL,

"I may never come back. Something tells me that my life,
such as it is--empty and worthless enough, God knows--has
nearly run its full course. But if I do come back to claim
the happiness which your love holds out for me,--I will not
face you again with so deep a stain upon mine honour. I did
not tell you before because I was too great a coward. I
could not bear to think that you would despise me--I could
not encounter the look of contempt in your eyes: so I
remained silent to the call of honour. And now I speak
because the next few hours will atone for everything. If I
come back you will forgive. If I fall you will mourn. In
either case I shall be happy that you know. Crystal! in all
my life I spoke only one lie, and that was three months
ago, when I set out to reclaim the King's money, which had
been filched from you on the high road, and returned
empty-handed. I found the money and I found the t