The cornet welcomed him with both hands, and, hearing from Charles of his plight, said, “Now, I know you are a gentleman, and I may offend you, but, if you are utterly hard up, take service with me.  There!”

“I will do so with the deepest gratitude,” said Charles.  “But I cannot ride, I fear.  My left arm is gone.”

“Pish!  Ride with your right.  It’s a bargain.”

Then Charles went upstairs, and was introduced to the cornet’s mother.

He accepted his new position with dull carelessness.  Life was getting very worthless.  And all this time, had he but known it, money and a home, and sweet little Mary Corby, who had loved him ever since he was a boy, were waiting for him.

There was also a remarkable advertisement which appeared in the “Times” for a considerable period, and was never seen by Charles.  The advertisement was inserted by old Lady Ascot, and offered one hundred guineas to any person who could discover the register of marriage between Peter Ravenshoe, Esq., of Ravenshoe, in the county of Devon, and Maria Dawson, supposed to have been solemnised about 1778.

How was Charles to know that Cuthbert Ravenshoe was dead; that William, now master of Ravenshoe, still hoped for his foster-brother’s life, and that old Lady Ascot was doing all she could to atone for a mistake?  Charles, in fact, was still very weak and ill, and served his friend the cornet in a poor way.  He had not recovered the shock of his fever and delirium in the Crimea, and both nerve and health were gone.

Nobody could be more kind and affectionate than the cornet and his deaf mother.  They guessed that he was “somebody,” and that things were wrong with him; and the cornet once or twice invited his confidence; but he was too young, and Charles had not the energy to tell him anything.

And life was getting very, very weary business for Charles.  By day, riding had become a terror, and at night he got no rest.  And his mind began to dwell too much on the bridges over the Thames, and on the water lapping and swirling about the piers.

Then, as it happened, a little shoeblack with whom Charles had struck up a friendship, falling sick in a foul court in South London, Charles must needs go and sit with him.  The child died in his arms, and a dull terror came on Charles when he thought of his homeward journey.  A scripture reader who had been in the room came towards him and laid his hand upon his shoulder.  Charles turned from the dead child, and looked up into the face of John Marston, the best of his old Oxford friends.

They passed out of the house together, Charles clinging tight to John Marston’s arms.  When they got to Marston’s lodgings, Charles sat down by the fire, and said quietly, “John, you have saved me!  I should never have got home this night.”

But John Marston, by finding Charles, had dashed his dearest hopes to the ground.  He had always loved Mary Corby from his first visit to Ravenshoe, and Mary loved Charles, who had loved Adelaide, who had married Lord Welter.  Marston thought there was just a chance for him, and now that chance was gone.  How did he behave, knowing that?