Cecil smiled with a sort of sad amusement at all this and his slight assumption of marital experience.  Harry and Bluebell seemed years younger than herself,—­a giddy, happy young couple, the very sunshine of whose lives dazzled them too much to see into the depths of hers.

One afternoon she had started for a lonely walk.  The rest of the party were pretty well disposed of—­Bluebell driving with Mrs. Rolleston, and the others, she thought were with the General; but it did not much matter.  It was a blustering February afternoon—­Cecil long remembered it; the north wind had strewn the ground with dead branches, and cawing rooks, on the eve of wedlock, were drifting about incoherently on the breeze.  She was following the course of a brook where the grounds widened into a wild, brambly park, and looking over her shoulder she perceived Jack Vavasour some distance off, coming along with rapid strides as if bent on overtaking her.

Cecil sauntered slowly on, not ill pleased at the opportunity of an unreserved conversation with Jack.  She noticed, with furtive amusement, that he slackened his pace considerably as he neared her, probably to give an accidental aspect to the encounter.  She turned round with a contented smile of expectation, and they wandered on together, Cecil instinctively choosing the most unfrequented and far-off boundary of the park.  It was impossible to keep up long a commonplace conversation, and they became more and more distrait and nervous, each wishing to approach one subject, and neither liking to begin.  In such a case, it is always the woman who breaks the ice.  An allusion to the war was sufficient in this instance, and Jack responded so eagerly, she was confirmed in her impression that he had something to tell her.  Without waiting for further questioning, he plunged into Crimean reminiscences of Bertie Du Meresq, whom he had seen nearly every day till his death, to all of which poor Cecil listened with breathless interest, and yet she knew there was something more to come.

“You know,” continued Vavasour, “his watch and things were sent back to England; but when we cut open his tunic, to see if he was breathing, something dropped out that he had worn through the action.  I kept that, for I thought I would restore it only to the rightful owner.”

What intuitive feeling was it that made her wish he would say no more!  Jack was opening his pocket-book, and drew out a piece of folded paper.

“I knew it in a moment,” he cried, as a long coil of soft, dark hair appeared, so closely resembling Cecil’s own as fully to justify his conviction that it was so.

He had expected to see her greatly moved; but the sudden pallor of her face puzzled him, which sensation was still more intensified when her large eyes flashed a moment upon him with an expression he never forgot, and, turning abruptly away, she walked towards the house.

Of all the trouble Cecil had gone through of late, I think for concentrated bitterness this moment was the worst.  Though the colour was identical, by feel and texture she knew the tress was not her own, added to which, no such token had ever passed between herself and Bertie.