boys hawking
evening papers, and proclaiming startling news. She saw from the balcony
her servant dart down the street for the gratification of his curiosity.
He bought a paper, and perused it as he slowly returned. He got "quite a
turn," as he afterwards described it, when his mistress, pale as a sheet,
met him at the door, and, without a word, snatched the evening journal
from his astonished hands.

No occasion to seek far. The sensational paragraph was in capital
letters, and contained the intelligence of the battle of Balaklava, and
famous charge of the six hundred, with its fearful losses. The cavalry
regiments engaged were named. Among them was Bertie Du Meresq's, and
mentioned as one that had suffered heavily. The returns of killed and
wounded did not appear.

Mrs. Rolleston had a friend at the Horse Guards, and instantly despatched
the servant there, with a letter requesting further particulars as early
as possible. Ill news does not lag. A letter from General--soon arrived,
with its warning black seal. Captain Du Meresq was among the casualties.
He had been shot through the heart during the charge.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

AN UNEXPECTED RENCONTRE.

Into a ward of the white-washed walls,
Where the dead and the dying lay,
Wounded by bayonets, shells, and balls,
Somebody's darling was borne one day.
--Song.

Mrs. Rolleston completely sank under this dreadful blow. Bertie had been
her darling and pride from his infancy, and her own misery was redoubled,
in anticipation of the even greater anguish of Cecil.

Strange to say, though, _she_ experienced no new shock. That Du Meresq
was dead, she had never doubted, or that his spirit, in the moment of
departure, had hovered for an instant near the one who loved him best. It
seemed to connect her with that other world whither he had gone. It did
not appear so far away, now Bertie was there, and her thoughts were ever
in communion with her spirit love.

The hour in which he had, as she believed, appeared to her, she regularly
passed alone in the same room, and even prayed for another sign of his
presence.

But if such prayers were answered, what mourners would remain unvisited
by their dead?

This room became her "temple and her shrine," in which Bertie, all his
sins forgotten, was canonized. How incessantly she regretted having
parted with those letters, so impulsively affectionate and so entirely
confidential