ossip that pronounced
Tremayne Una Butler's poor suitor, too poor either to declare himself or
to be accepted if he did. The old wound which that gossip had dealt him
then was reopened now. He thought of Tremayne's manifest concern for
Una; he remembered how in that very room some six weeks ago, when
Butler's escapade had first been heard of, it was from avowed concern
for Una that Tremayne had urged him to befriend and rescue his rascally
brother-in-law. He remembered, too, with increasing bitterness that it
was Una herself had induced him to appoint Tremayne to his staff.

There were moments when the conviction of Tremayne's honesty, the
thought of Tremayne's unswerving friendship for himself, would surge up
to combat and abate the fires of his devastating jealousy.

But evidence would kindle those fires anew until they flamed up to
scorch his soul with shame and anger. He had been a fool in that he had
married a woman of half his years; a fool in that he had suffered her
former lover to be thrown into close association with her.

Thus he assured himself. But he would abide by his folly, and so must
she. And he would see to it that whatever fruits that folly yielded,
dishonour should not be one of them. Through all his darkening rage
there beat the light of reason. To avert, he bethought him, was better
than to avenge. Nor were such stains to be wiped out by vengeance. A
cuckold remains a cuckold though he take the life of the man who has
reduced him to that ignominy.

Tremayne must go before the evil transcended reparation. Let him return
to his regiment and do his work of sapping and mining elsewhere than in
O'Moy's household.

Eased by that resolve he rose, a tall, martial figure, youth and energy
in every line of it for all his six and forty years. Awhile he paced the
room in thought. Then, suddenly, with hands clenched behind his back, he
checked by the window, checked on a horrible question that had flashed
upon his tortured mind. What if already the evil should be irreparable?
What proof had he that it was not so?

The door opened, and Tremayne himself came in quickly.

"Here's the very devil to pay, sir," he announced, with that odd mixture
of familiarity towards his friend and deference to his chief.

O'Moy looked at him in silence with smouldering, questioning eyes,
thinking of anything but the trouble which the captain's air and manner
heralded.

"Captain Stanhope has just arrived from headquarter