I don’t know how it was that Cecil prevailed in the end.  A year ago, if she had proposed such a thing, Colonel Rolleston would have a considered her a fit subject for a maison de sante, but he had been thinking for some time that his daughter was “odd.”  She was evidently turning out one of those unmanageable beings, an eccentric woman.  Of age, and with an independent income, if baulked in this, she might only do something else equally perverse, and, though a most extraordinary fancy for a girl so brought up, he would not oppose it further.

And then Cecil, when she had got her wish, with a strange inconsistency seemed almost inclined to give it up again.  But the Colonel, being in ignorance of her vacillating purpose, took her passage in the same ship as the other nurses.

Work enough was there for every one when that vessel reached its destination.  The battle of the Alma had just been fought, and the wounded were being brought in daily to Scutari.

In the mean time, Colonel Rolleston had sailed with his regiment, and Mrs. Rolleston fell into such a state of nervous depression, that Cecil saw it would be cruel to abandon her—­another opportunity for going out would soon occur, and defering her journey till then, she remained at home to fulfil the more obvious duty of supporting the sinking spirits of her step-mother.

And so passed many weary weeks.  The battle of the Alma had been won, and none of their belongings had appeared in the long list of killed and wounded.  Mrs. Rolleston, becoming more accustomed to suspense, bore up with greater fortitude.  Letters from the seat of war were, of course, waited for with fearful anxiety, and on the few and far between occasions when these arrived, they were all comparatively happy.

One evening Cecil was sitting alone in her own room, and, being very tired after a long day at the hospital, dropped asleep in her chair.  She awoke with a feeling of deadly chilliness.  The moon was shining into the room, and the figure of Bertie Du Meresq, keen clearly by its rays, was standing quietly gazing at her.

“Bertie!” shrieked Cecil “Oh, when did you come?”—­and she tried to rush forward to greet him, but her limbs seemed paralyzed, and he did not move either, though a sad, sweet smile seemed to pass over his face. Was it himself, or only a quivering moonbeam? for when she was able to move there was nothing else to be seen.

A ghost itself could not have been whiter than Cecil, as she fled to the drawing room, and almost inarticulately described what she had beheld.

The very horror it inspired made Mrs. Rolleston repel the ghastly idea almost angrily.

“Good heavens, Cecil, why do you frighten me so!  You had fallen asleep, and were dreaming.  You say yourself,” and she shuddered, “it was gone when you awoke.”

“You know,” said the girl, not apparently attending, “I have never seen Bertie in uniform, but this is what he wore,” (describing the dress of the ——­ Hussars), “and his tunic was torn.”