ring sound to it."

"I couldn't!" Van Diemen sighed. "It's not a natural feeling I have about
it--I 've brooded on the word. If I have a nightmare, I see Deserter
written in sulphur on the black wall."

"You can't remain at his mercy, and be bullied as you are. He makes you
ill, sir. He won't do anything, but he'll go on worrying you. I'd stop
him at once. I'd take the train to-morrow and get an introduction to the
Commander-in-Chief. He's the very man to be kind to you in a situation
like this. The General would get you the introduction."

"That's more to my taste; but no, I couldn't," Van Diemen moaned in his
weakness. "Money has unmanned me. I was n't this kind of man formerly;
nor more was Mart Tinman, the traitor! All the world seems changeing for
the worse, and England is n't what she used to be."

"You let that man spoil it for you, sir." Herbert related Mrs.
Crickledon's tale of Mr. Tinman, adding, "He's an utter donkey. I should
defy him. What I should do would be to let him know to-morrow morning
that you don't intend to see him again. Blow for, blow, is the thing he
requires. He'll be cringing to you in a week."

"And you'd like to marry Annette," said Van Diemen, relishing,
nevertheless, the advice, whose origin and object he perceived so
plainly.

"Of course I should," said Herbert, franker still in his colour than his
speech.

"I don't see him my girl's husband." Van Diemen eyed the red hollow in
the falling coals. "When I came first, and found him a healthy man,
good-looking enough for a trifle over forty, I 'd have given her gladly,
she nodding Yes. Now all my fear is she's in earnest. Upon my soul, I had
the notion old Mart was a sort of a boy still; playing man, you know. But
how can you understand? I fancied his airs and stiffness were put on;
thought I saw him burning true behind it. Who can tell? He seems to be
jealous of my buying property in his native town. Something frets him. I
ought never to have struck him! There's my error, and I repent it. Strike
a friend! I wonder he didn't go off to the Horse Guards at once. I might
have done it in his place, if I found I couldn't lick him. I should have
tried kicking first."

"Yes, shinning before peaching," said Herbert, astonished almost as much
as he was disgusted by the inveterate sentimental attachment of Van
Diemen to his old friend.

Martin Tinman anticipated good things of the fright he had given the man
after dinner. He had, undoubted