There was a hotel library filled with archaic fiction.

I took out Ainsworth's "Tower of London," and passed a happy morning in the sun renewing the thrills of my childhood.
I began to forget the outer world in my enchanted garden, like a knight in the Forest of Broceliande.
Then came the letter from Tlemcen.

The Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the 3rd Regiment of Chasseurs d'Afrique had received my honoured communication but regretted to say that he, together with all the officers of the regiment, had severed their connection with Captain Vauvenarde, and that they were ignorant of his present address.
This was absurd.

A man does not resign from his regiment and within a year or two disappear like a ghost from the ken of every one of his brother officers.

I read the letter again.