ce's seeming access of insanity.

And the only conclusion that she reached was that intertwined with the
death of Samoval there was some other circumstance which had aroused in
the adjutant an unreasoning hatred of his friend, converting him into
Tremayne's bitterest enemy, intent--as he had confessed--upon seeing him
shot for that night's work. And because she knew them both for men of
honour above all, the enigma was immeasurably deepened.

Had she but obeyed the transient impulse to seek Lady O'Moy she might
have discovered all the truth at once. For she would have come upon her
ladyship in a frame of mind almost as distraught as her own; and she
might--had she penetrated to the dressing-room where her ladyship
was--have come upon Richard Butler at the same time.

Now, in view of what had happened, her ladyship, ever impulsive, was
all for going there and then to her husband to confess the whole truth,
without pausing to reflect upon the consequences to others than Ned
Tremayne. As you know, it was beyond her to see a thing from two points
of view at one and the same time. It was also beyond her brother--the
failing, as I think I have told you, was a family one--and her brother
saw this matter only from the point of view of his own safety.

"A single word to Terence," he had told her, putting his back to the
door of the dressing-room to bar her intended egress, "and you realise
that it will be a court-martial and a firing party for me."

That warning effectively checked her. Yet certain stirrings of
conscience made her think of the man who had imperilled himself for her
sake and her brother's.

"But, Dick, what is to become of Ned?" she had asked him.

"Oh, Ned will be all right. What is the evidence against him after all?
Men are not shot for things they haven't done. Justice will out, you
know. Leave Ned to shift for himself for the present. Anyhow his danger
isn't grave, nor is it immediate, and mine is."

Helplessly distraught, she sank to an ottoman. The night had been a very
trying one for her ladyship. She gave way to tears.

"It is all your fault, Dick," she reproached him.

"Naturally you would blame me," he said with resignation--the complete
martyr.

"If only you had been ready at the time, as he told you to be, there
would have been no delays, and you would have got away before any of
this happened."

"Was it my fault that I should have reopened my wound--bad luck to
it!--in attempting to ge