Brief though my nap of "forty winks," I had within it a little dream, induced, no doubt, by my return to Wales, and by my surroundings, as it was of Winifred Lloyd, of past tenderness, and our old kind, flirting, cousinly intercourse, before others came between us; for Winifred had ever been as a sister to me, and dearer, perhaps. Now I thought she was hanging over me with much of sorrowful yearning in her soft face, and saying,

"Papa will not be here for an hour, perhaps, and for that hour I may have him all to myself, to watch. Poor Harry, so bruised, so battered, and so ill-used by those odious wretches!"

Her lips were parted; her breath came in short gasps.

Was it imagination or reality that a kiss or a tress of her hair touched my cheek so lightly? There was certainly a tear, too!

I started and awoke fully, to see her I dreamt of standing at the side of my chair, with one hand resting on it, while her soft eyes regarded me sadly, earnestly, and--there is no use evading it--lovingly. She wore her blue riding-habit, her skirt gathered in the hand which held her switch and buff gauntlets; and though her fine hair was beautifully dressed under her riding-hat, one tress was loose.

"Dear Winifred, my appearance does not shock you, I hope?" said I, clasping her hand tenderly, and perhaps with some of that energy peculiar to those who have but one.

"Thank Heaven, it is no worse!" she replied; "but, poor Harry Hardinge, an arm is a serious loss."

"Yet I might have come home, like Le Diable Boiteux, on two wooden stumps, as Dora once half predicted; but even as it is, my round-dancing is at an end now. By the way, I have a sorrowful message for you."

"Then I don't want to hear it. But from whom?"

"One who can return no more, but one who loved you well--Phil Caradoc."

A shade of irritation crossed her face for a moment; and then, with something of sorrow, she asked,

"And this message?--poor fellow, he fell at the Redan!"

"His last thoughts and words were of you, Winny--amid the anguish of a mortal wound," said I; and then I told her the brief story of his death, and of his interment in the fifth parallel. Her eyes were very full of tears; yet none fell, and somehow my little narrative failed to excite her quite so much as I expected.

"Did you not love him?"

"No," she replied, curtly, and gathering up the skirt of her habit more tightly, as if to leave me.

"Did you never do so?"

"Why those questions?--never, save as a friend--poor dear Mr. Caradoc! But let us change the subject," she added, her short lip quivering, and her half-drooped eyelids, too.

I was silent for a minute. I knew that, with a knowledge of the secret sentiment which Winifred treasured in her heart for myself, I was wrong in pursuing thus the unwelcome theme of Caradoc's rejection; moreover, there are few men, if any, who would not have felt immensely flattered by the preferences of a girl so bright and beautiful, so soft and artless, as Miss Lloyd; and I found myself rapidly yielding to the whole charm of the situation.

"How odd that you should have returned on my birthday!" said she, playing with her jewelled switch, and permitting me to retain her ungloved hand in mine.

"Your birthday."

"Yes; I am just twenty-three."

"The number of the old corps, Winifred--the number, see it when he may, a soldier never forgets."

"But I hope you have bidden good-bye to it for ever."

"Too probably; and you cannot know, dear Winifred, how deep is the pleasure I feel in being here again, after all I have undergone--here in pleasant Craigaderyn; and more than all with you--hearing your familiar voice, and looking into your eyes."

"Why?" she asked, looking out on the sunlit chase.

"Can you ask me why, when you know that I love you, Winny, and have always loved you?"

"As a friend, of course," said she, trembling very much; "yes--but nothing more."

"I repeat that I love you tenderly and truly; have I not ever known your worth, your goodness--"

"Is this true, Harry Hardinge?" she asked, in a low voice, as my arm encircled her, and she looked coyly but tremblingly down.

"True as that God now hears us, my darling, whom I hope yet to call my wife!"

"O, say it again and again, dear Harry," said she, in a low voice like a whisper; "I did so doubt it once--did so doubt that you would ever, ever love me, who--who--loved you so," she continued, growing very pale. "It may be unwomanly in me to say this, Harry; but I am not ashamed to own it now."

"To a poor cripple, a warlike fragment from the Crimea," said I, with a smile, as caressingly I drew her head down on my shoulder; and while I toyed with her dark-brown hair, and gazed into her tender violet-coloured eyes, I thought, "How can a man love any but a woman with eyes and hair like Winny's?"

(At that moment I quite forgot how fatuously I had worshipped the thick golden tresses, the snow-white skin, and deep black eyes of Valerie. And it was for me that Winny had declined poor Phil, Sir Watkins, and some one else! O, I certainly owed her some reparation!)

"Bless you, darling, for your love," said I; "and I think our marriage will make good Sir Madoc so happy."

"You were ever his favourite, Harry."

"And you have actually loved me, Winn............