Six years of the allotted period had expired.  Algernon had been promoted to the rank of major; and his letters were full of happy anticipations.  Elinor herself began to look forward to their union as a thing likely to take place; and she spoke of her lover’s perseverance and constancy with proud delight.

“He has done better than I expected of him,” said the Squire.  “There is nothing like adversity for trying what a man’s made of.  But who can wonder at his exerting himself to obtain such a reward?” And he bowed to the blushing Elinor, as she sat with Algernon’s letter in her hand, radiant with joy.

“He talks of returning in less than two years:  I wish it were now.  I am already three-and-twenty; by that time I shall begin to look old.”

Mark thought that she never looked younger, or more beautiful, than at that moment, and he told her so.

“Ah, but you are my friend—­are partial.  Will not Algernon see a change?”

“Yes—­for the better.”

“I wish I could believe you.  But I feel older.  My heart is not so fresh as it was; I no longer live in a dream; I see things as they really are.”

“And do you expect to find no change in your lover?  The burning climate of India is not a great beautifier.”

“I can only see him as he was.  If his heart remains unchanged, no alteration in his personal appearance could shake my regard, particularly when those changes have been incurred for my sake.”

“Oh, woman, great is your faith!” said Mark, with a sigh.  “Gladly would I give my fortune to be Algernon.”

Elinor started, and looked anxiously at her companion.  It was the first time he had ever alluded to his secret passion.  Did he love her?  The question made Elinor tremble.  She folded her letter, and turned the conversation into another channel.  But the words haunted her, “I would give my fortune to be Algernon.”  Could he be in earnest?  Perhaps it was only a passing compliment—­men were fond of paying such.  But the Squire was no flatterer; he seldom said what he did not mean.  She re-read Algernon’s letter, and thought no more about the words that his brother had let fall.

That letter was the last she ever received from her lover.  After enduring the most torturing suspense for eighteen months, and writing frequently to demand the cause of his unnatural silence, Elinor gave herself up to the most gloomy forebodings.  Mr. Hurdlestone endeavored to soothe her fears, and win her to the belief that his brother’s letters must have miscarried, through the negligence of private hands, to whom they might have been entrusted.  But when these suggestions failed in arousing her from the stupor of grief into which she had fallen, he offered the most tender consolations which could be administered to a wounded mind—­an appearance of heartfelt sympathy in its sufferings.

While musing one morning over the cause of Algernon’s silence, the Squire’s groom approached the open window at which she was seated, and placed a letter in her hands; it was edged and sealed with black; and Elinor hastily broke the seal, and opened it.  Her eye glanced, hurriedly over the first few words.  She uttered a loud cry; and sank down, weeping, at her mother’s feet.