bell said--wanted to die. Some love affair, I
suppose, poor fellow?--and a terrible bout he had for eight-and-forty
hours. Thurnall thought him gone again and again; but he pulled the poor
fellow through, after all, and we got some one (that is, Campbell did)
to take his duty; and brought him away, after a good deal of persuasion;
for he would not move as long as there was a fresh case in the town;
that is why we never wrote. We did not know till the last hour when we
should start; and we expected to be with you in two days, and give you a
pleasant surprise. He was half dead when we got him on board; but the
week's sea-air helped him through; so I must not grumble at these
northerly breezes. 'It's an ill wind that blows nobody good,' they say!"

Valencia heard all this as in a dream; and watched her chattering
brother with a stupefied air. She comprehended all now; and bitterly she
blamed herself. He had really loved her, then; set himself manfully to
die at his post, that he might forget her in a better world. How
shamefully she had trifled with that noble heart! How should she ever
meet--how have courage to look him in the face? And not love, or
anything like love, but sacred pity and self-abasement filled her heart,
as his fair, delicate face rose up before her, all wan and shrunken,
with sad upbraiding eyes; and round it such a halo, pure and pale, as
crowns, in some old German picture, a martyr's head.

"He has had the cholera! he has been actually dying?" asked she at last,
with that strange wish to hear over again bad news, which one knows too
well already.

"Of course he has. Why, you are not going away, Valencia? You need not
be afraid of infection. Campbell, and Thurnall, too, says that's all
nonsense; and they must know, having seen it so often. Here comes Bowie
at last with supper!"

"Has Mr. Headley had anything to eat?" asked Valencia, who longed to run
away to her own room, but dared not.

"He is eating now like any ged, ma'am; and Major Campbell's making him
eat too."

"He must be very ill," thought she, "for mon Saint Pere never to have
come near us yet:" and then she thought with terror that her Saint Pere
might have guessed the truth, and be angry with her. And yet she trusted
in Frank's secrecy. He would not betray her.

Take care, Valencia. When a woman has to trust a man not to betray her,
and does trust him, she may soon find it not only easy, but necessary,
to do more than trust him.

H