d the pluck to face if I had known what was before me. Then, in July,
I got fever. I had to come away, to find a doctor, and I was a long time
at Cattaro pulling round. And, meanwhile, the Turks--God blast
them!--have been at their fiends' work. Half my particular friends, with
whom I spent the winter, have been hacked to pieces since I left them."

She wavered, held by his look, by the coercion of that mingled passion
and indifference with which he spoke. There was in his manner no
suggestion whatever of things behind, no reference to herself or to the
past between them. His passion, it seemed, was for his comrades; his
indifference for her. What had he to do with her any more? He had been
among the realities of battle and death, while she had been mincing and
ambling along the usual feminine path. That was the utterance, it
seemed, of the man's whole manner and personality, and nothing could
have more effectually recalled Kitty's wild nature to the lure.

"Are you going back?" She had turned from him and was pulling at the
fingers of the glove he had picked up.

"Of course! I am only kicking my heels here till I can collect the money
and stores--ay, and the <i>men</i>--I want. I give my orders in London, and I
must be here to see to the transshipment of stores and the embarkation
of my small force! Not meant for the newspapers, you see, Lady
Kitty--these little details!"

He drew himself up smiling, his worn aspect expressing just that
mingling of dare-devil adventure with subtler and more self-conscious
things which gave edge and power to his personality.

"I heard you were wounded," said Kitty, abruptly.

"So I was--badly. We were defending a <i>polje</i>--one of their high
mountain valleys, against a Beg and his troops. My left arm"--he pointed
to the black sling in which it was still held--"was nearly cut to
pieces. However, it is practically well."

He took it out of the sling and showed that he could use it. Then his
expression changed. He stepped back to the door, and opened it
ceremoniously.

"Don't, however, let me delay you, Lady Kitty--by my chatter."

Kitty's cheeks were crimson. Her momentary yielding vanished in a
passion of scorn. What!--he knew that she had seen him before, seen him
with that woman--and he dared to play the mere shattered hero, kept in
Venice by these crusader's reasons!

"Have you another volume on the way?" she asked him, as she advanced. "I
read your last."

Her smile w