It is said that 'there is nothing so difficult to believe as a certainty, till we have lived long enough to feel that it is a certainty, and not a delusion;' but Cecil Falconer soon realised the fact of his ruin.
With much genuine commiseration of manner and great kindness of tone, the adjutant had acquainted him that he had been dismissed generally—not specifically—and that her Majesty had no further occasion for his services, and that the general order, thereanent, would be out in a day or two!
Cecil had boasted of the strength given to him by Mary's visit; yet, when the crash came, his strength and spirit alike gave way.
'My good name and my commission were all I possessed in the world, and I have lost both!' exclaimed Cecil to Fotheringhame, who grasped his hand impetuously; 'what will life be, henceforth, for me?
Fotheringhame felt for him deeply, keenly, yet scarcely knew, from the depth of his own emotion, and the desperation of the crisis, what to say.
'Think of Mary Montgomerie,' he urged, after a pause.
'I do think of her, but to what end or purpose? She is further removed from me than ever. To marry her would be to deprive her of fortune and position—to place her at the mercy of the general and of Hew; and I—what have I to share with her but disgrace?'
His sun had set—his day of life was over—over at its dawn and flush! His heart failed at the hopeless and penniless prospect before him; and the impossibility of having to reconstruct a whole life for the future on some new plan, and with other appliances—or die!
'My dear Fotheringhame, thanks for your sympathy,' said he; 'but the sooner I am out of this place, the better now.'
'And whither do you mean to go?'
'Heaven alone knows—I do not!' was the half-despairing response.
The news spread fast, and, apart from his brother-officers, the men of his company came by sections and scores to shake his hand and bid him farewell. All felt for him, loved him and sorrowed for him, and the dark dream, seemed to be in progress still. Could it all be real?
The first preparation for departure was to take from his desk the withered daisies culled from his mother's grave, and place them in his breast. An intense longing was in his heart now to be gone—to go, go, go—anywhere!
'I am going away, Tom,' said he to Atkins, who was hovering about him, and mechanically polishing the sword he would never draw again.
'Where to, sir?' asked Tom.
'I don't know where to—as yet—but I'm out of the regiment now!'
'Out of the regiment,' faltered Tom, as if it was an impossible event, even after all that had preceded it.
'Yes; I am, God help me, a broken man!'
There was a sob in Tom's throat, and he ventured to wring his master's hand.
'And you leave, sir——'
'As soon as I can, Tom. Take this note to the paymaster—I'll need all the money I can get.'
Tom saluted, took the note, but hurrying into his kitchen, in tremulous haste took a little packet from his knapsack and returned to place it in Cecil's hand.
'What is this?' asked the latter.
'Not much, sir. You'll excuse me, sir. I can't go away with you, but I may help you, at least.'
'But what is this—money?'
'Only a matter of ten pounds sent me by mother, to make me comfortable a bit. I am sorry it isn't more, sir; but if you'll take it to help you, for poor Tommy Atkins's sake, he'll be a proud man to-night. You've been a kind master to me, sir, and—and——'
But here the private soldier fairly broke down, and wept outright, 'bo-hooing' like a whipped urchin. Falconer was greatly affected.
'Thank you, my dear fellow—thank you: but this can't be,' said he: and he had no small difficulty in getting Atkins to keep the proffered money.
'Look here,' said Acharn to a group next morning in the mess-room, 'Falconer had only his pay, and this sentence is ruin and beggary to him; I have here a cheque for eight hundred at his service, and I know that you fellows, and ever so many more of the mess, will stump up. We must do something to start him, somehow or somewhere; but how or where is beyond me, for poor Cecil is a soldier, and nothing but a soldier.'
'But where the deuce is he?' asked Fotheringhame, who with Freeport came in with genuine anxiety expressed in their faces, to state that his rooms were empty; that he had left the fortress ere tattoo was beaten last night, and Atkins knew not where he was gone.
'He has got from old Blunt, the paymaster, the last money due to him,' Fotheringhame said; 'and he has nothing with him but a small portmanteau and a brace of revolver pistols. Everything else—his uniforms, and so forth—he has, by a note, left with me.'
'Where can he have gone?' said one.
'Oh, we'll trace him somehow,' said another.
But all attempts to trace him proved utterly unavailing.
So he had left the regiment, silently, quietly and alone, and of course, under the peculiar circumstances, without the farewell dinner given to a departing comrade—left it without shaking the hand of anyone formally—quitting the castle in the night, unseen and unrecognised, taking only a few clothes and his pistols.
'What does he mean to do with them?' asked Freeport.
'Where can he have gone—what done with himself?' were the general surmises, while his sorrowing friends looked blankly in each other's faces, and Fotheringhame had a great yearning to see and talk with Mary Montgomerie on the subject, and was not without a lingering hope that she might be able to throw some light on the mystery that enveloped the disappearance of Falconer; but in this matter he was mistaken, for the days passed on and he was heard of no more.
Evil tidings fly fast: thus on the very night of Cecil's departure, through the general, his household became aware of the fate that had befallen the unfortunate.
Looking like a saint in her pure white nightdress, Mary sat on the edge of her bed, weeping bitterly after Mrs. Garth had left her, and refusing all the earnest yet commonplace comfort that Annabelle Erroll strove to give her.
'Oh, what shall we do!' she exclaimed, wringing her slender hands, for in the word 'we' there was an affectionate sense of identifying his existence with her own; and in this action, as in every other, Annabelle could not help admiring a good deal of that elegance and grace which marked every movement, posture and gesture of Mary Montgomerie. 'What shall we do! Crushed, poor and ruined as he is, he is dearer to me than ever. Cecil—Cecil—come to me, Cecil!' she added hysterically, and hid her face in the bosom of Annabelle, who was weeping freely too, and no doubt thinking of the woman with the veil, as she said:
'How unfortunate we are, dearest Mary, to have both become involved with men whose lives are enveloped in some cruel or degrading mystery.'
'Oh, do not say so—so far as poor Cecil is concerned,' replied Mary, with something of indignation in her tone.
Next morning found her face to face at the breakfast-table with Hew, whose features wore their brightest expression, and who was rubbing his cold fishy hands with unconcealed exultation; but Mary had got over her weeping now. She was very pale, and to all appearance heard unmoved the general reading in the morning papers the final details of Falconer's catastrophe—fiasco, as he called it—to Mrs. Garth, who was officiating at the urn. But Sir Piers laid aside the paper as soon as he perceived her. All could see her pallor, and an expression of irrepressible anguish about her delicate lips—the result of mental rather than physical suffering; and in truth Mary had not slept all night.
A letter lay beside her cup—a letter brought by morning post. It was addressed in Cecil's handwriting. Sir Piers was eyeing her firmly and inquiringly as she took it up hastily and placed it unopened in the bosom of her dress; but the moment breakfast was over, she hurried away to her own room to peruse it, with tears that blurred the lines, and hands that shook tremulously.
It told her briefly that he was about to leave his native land for ever, but for where he knew not yet, and cared not; and the concluding words went straight to her affectionate heart:
'Farewell, Mary—farewell, my darling—mine no more! farewell for ever, now. All is over with me. We have both been rash in loving each other so tenderly, without the consent of Sir Piers, your guardian; but our rashness has ended roughly, cruelly, and sorrowfully, especially for me. I have dreamed a happy dream in loving and being beloved by you—a dream the recollection of which will brighten all that remains to me of life, in the desolate path that lies before me.'
And so he was gone, without trace, as Fotheringhame eventually told her.
Again and again she pressed that tremulously written letter to her lips, and murmured,
'My darling—my poor lost darling!—surely he will write to me, or his friend, again!'
But days passed on, and became weeks and months, and no letter or sign came.
The worst had now come to pass; her vague suspicions of Hew's complicity in the affair were useless now, and Cecil seemed lost to her for ever.
'Now,' thought Sir Piers, with grim satisfaction, 'now that this unfortunate fellow Falconer is gone, he will forget Mary, and she will forget him, and, as a matter of course, Mary will return to her senses, and Hew's time will come.'
Perhaps Hew thought so too.
'When she sees him no more she will cease to grieve for him,' said Mrs. Garth, 'and this sore trouble will be lifted off our darling's heart in time—please God, in time.'
But the very mystery that involved Cecil's departure added to the trouble and thought of the girl he left behind him.
A nervous agony of mind and a great terror fell upon Mary—a terror that with Cecil's hopeless and aimless departure, none knew for where, a long and dull life lay before her, without the society of him for whom she seemed only now to have begun to exist—he so winsome, manly, chivalrous, and all her own.
Through the long weary hours of the night she often lay dry-eyed and feverish, without a tear coming to relieve her overcharged heart, for she and Cecil seemed parted now and for ever, as surely as if death had done so. Wild, at times, was the longing to follow him—but where?
Would she ever throw her soft arms round him again, and feel his lip meet hers!
Then the warm bright morning of the early summer would come mockingly in, and the routine of life had to be dreamily gone through.
So these two were parted thus, without having knowledge of each other, in sickness or health; and without the hopeful joy of a happy meeting, or reunion at any time, to look forward to.
It is 'when we are left alone with the reality of an anguish that has hitherto been but a dread, there comes the darkness which, like that of Egypt, may be felt.' And such was the dark anguish that fell upon the heart of Mary now.