suddenly, the sound of hoofs at a gallop on the drive,
and my husband threw himself off at the door and tore through the hall
to his room; and in the certainty that overwhelmed me even Judy, for an
instant, stood dim and remote.

'Major Jim seems to be in a hurry,' said Mrs. Harbottle, lightly. 'I
have always liked your husband. I wonder whether he will say tomorrow
that he always liked me.'

'Dear Judy, I don't think he will be occupied with you tomorrow.'

'Oh, surely, just a little, if I go tonight.'

'You won't go tonight.'

She looked at me helplessly. I felt as if I were insisting upon her
abasement instead of her salvation. 'I wish--'

'You're not going--you're not! You can't! Look!'

I pulled it out of my pocket and thrust it at her--the telegram.
It came, against every regulation, from my good friend the Deputy
Adjutant-General, in Simla, and it read, 'Row Khurram 12th probably
ordered front three hours' time.'

Her face changed--how my heart leaped to see it change!--and that took
command there which will command trampling, even in the women of the
camp, at news like this.

'What luck that Bob couldn't take his furlough!' she exclaimed,
single-thoughted. 'But you have known this for hours'--there was even
something of the Colonel's wife, authority, incisiveness. 'Why didn't
you tell me? Ah--I see.'

I stood before her abashed, and that was ridiculous, while she measured
me as if I presented in myself the woman I took her to be. 'It wasn't
like that,' she said. I had to defend myself. 'Judy,' I said, 'if you
weren't in honour bound to Anna, how could I know that you would be in
honour bound to the regiment? There was a train at three.'

'I beg to assure you that you have overcalculated,' said Mrs. Harbottle.
Her eyes were hard and proud. 'And I am not sure'--a deep red swept over
her face, a man's blush--'in the light of this I am not sure that I am
not in honour bound to Anna.'

We had reached the veranda, and at her signal her coachman drove quickly
up. 'You have kept me here three hours when there was the whole of
Bob's kit to see to,' she said, as she flung herself in; 'you might have
thought of that.'

It was a more than usually tedious campaign, and Colonel Robert
Harbottle was ambushed and shot in a place where one must believe pure
boredom induced him to take his men. The incident was relieved, the
newspapers said--and they are seldom so clever in finding relief for
such incidents--by