with that steamer's noisy passengers."

"Do you know anything about Captain Sedgwick, who brought you your
letters?" her companion asked.

"Not much. Distinguished himself somewhere and holds a Government post
in a West African colony. Came home on furlough, and seems to have had
some part in the state functions here. I'm inclined to think he's a
soldier of fortune; a man with a humble beginning, determined to get
on."

"Isn't that Mrs. Chudleigh he's now talking to?"

Mrs. Ashborne was short-sighted, but Margaret Keith's eyes were better,
and she noticed the stylish woman whom Sedgwick had joined.

"Yes," she said. "A widow, I believe, though one would not suspect it
from her clothes. She seems to know some of my friends, but I met her
here for the first time a few days ago."

"She married very young and her husband, who died in a few years, left
her a good deal of money; he was a merchant in Calcutta. She's too
smart and advanced for my taste, but her people have some standing. It
looks as if she were attracted by Sedgwick; she's undoubtedly gracious
to him."

"Then it's an opportunity he won't miss. The man's an adventurer."

Sedgwick and his companion passed out of sight, and Mrs. Ashborne
opened the _Morning Post_, from which she presently looked up.

"'A marriage--between Blanche Newcombe and Captain Challoner--at
Thornton Holme, in Shropshire,'" she read out. "Do you know the bride?"

"I know Bertram Challoner better," Mrs. Keith replied, and was silent
for a minute or two, musing on former days. Then she went on: "His
mother was an old friend of mine; a woman of imagination, with strong
artistic tastes, and Bertram resembles her. It was his father, the
Colonel, who forced him into the army, and I'm somewhat astonished that
he has done so well."

"They were all soldiers, I understand. But wasn't there some scandal
about a cousin?"

"Richard Blake?" said Mrs. Keith, making room for Millicent Graham, her
companion, who rejoined them. "It's getting an old story, and I always
found it puzzling. So far as one could judge, Dick Blake should have
made an excellent officer; his mother, the Colonel's sister, was true
to the Challoner strain, his father a reckless Irish sportsman."

"But what was the story? I haven't heard it."

"After Blake broke his neck when hunting, the Colonel brought Dick up
and, as a matter of course, sent him into the army. He became a
sapper, and, entering the Ind