Classicly

The Arrow of Gold is an adventure novel written by Joseph Conrad, was originally titled "The Laugh" and published serially in Lloyd's Magazine. The story is set in Marseille in the 1870s during the Third Carlist War.

Excerpts:

The pages which follow have been extracted from a pile of manuscript which was apparently meant for the eye of one woman only.  She seems to have been the writer’s childhood’s friend.  They had parted as children, or very little more than children.  Years passed.  Then something recalled to the woman the companion of her young days and she wrote to him: “I have been hearing of you lately.