r to her deserts!" The Major winced,
perceiving which, my lady faced him. "How, do you love her yet?" she
questioned.

"My lady, she is dead," he answered. Lady Betty turned and leaning to
a rose that bloomed near by, touched it with gentle fingers.

"And--do you--love her yet, Major John?" she asked softly.

"I held her in my memory as the sweetest of all women until a few weeks
ago," he answered simply. My lady's caressing fingers faltered
suddenly.

"She was the third woman in your life?"

"Yes," he answered, "because of her memory I have lived a hard life and
let love go by nor thought of it."

"Not once?"

"Not once, until of late." My lady was silent, and, leaning nearer, he
continued: "Twenty years ago I gave my love and, being hopeless, sought
for death and never found it. So, hating war, I made of war my life.
I became a soldier of fortune and wheresoever battle was, there was I;
when one campaign ended I went in quest of others. So I have learned
much of men, of foreign countries, and war in every shape, but of women
and love--nothing whatever. Indeed I should be fighting yet but for
this unexpected legacy. And now----" He sighed.

"And now?" she repeated softly.

"Now I find that youth has fled and left but emptiness behind!"

"Poor, O poor, decrepit, ancient man!" she sighed, "with your back so
bent and your arms so feeble! So wrinkled, so toothless, and so
blind!" And rising she turned away and leaned round elbows on the
sundial. Now presently he came and stood beside her, looking into her
lovely, down-bent face then pointed to the legend graven on the stone.

"Read," said he, "read and tell me--is't not wisdom?" And, very
obediently, she read aloud:

"Youth is joyous; Age is melancholy:
Age and Youth together is but folly."

"Indeed," she nodded, "'tis a very wise proverb and, like most other
proverbs, sayeth very plainly that black is black and white is white.
And truly I do think you a great coward, Major 'Fighting d'Arcy'!"

"Betty?" said he, a little breathlessly.

"You may be very brave in battle but in--in other things you are a very
coward!"

"My lady--O Betty! Do you mean ... is it possible that such miracle
could be... You in the bloom of your youth and beauty, I----"

"So bent with years!" said she in tender mockery, "so feeble and
so--very--blind!"

The Major's philosophic calm was shattered, his placid serenity gone
all in a moment; he reached out s