Up at Constantine, where he had always contrived to billet himself, 'tis to be thought pretty Madam Noy pined to see him again, kicking his spurs in the porch and smiling out of his gay brown eyes; for her face fell away from its plump condition, and the hunger in her eyes grew and grew.

But a more remarkable fact was that her old husband--who wouldn't have yearned after the dragoon, ye'd have thought--began to dwindle and fall away too.

By the New Year he was a dying man, and carried his doom on his face.

And on New Year's Day he straddled his mare for the last time, and rode over to Looe, to Doctor Gale's.
"Goody-losh!" cried the doctor, taken aback by his appearance-- "What's come to ye, Noy ?" "Death!" says Noy.

"Doctor, I hain't come for advice, for before this day week I'll be a clay-cold corpse.