reach
here without accident. They will agree, I daresay, that the sooner I
escort them home the better. Fetch me a lantern, if you please."

"It--it is extremely good of you," stammered Miss Gabriel.

"My dear madam!" he protested, with a good-natured smile.

Miss Gabriel did not respond to it. But, though bitterly angry, for the
moment she was cowed, and she made no further reference to the
mysterious lady.

She declined the Commandant's arm. Mrs. Pope, however, took it almost
eagerly, and on the way down the hill he obtained from her a voluble if
somewhat incoherent account of the night's adventures. He did his best
now to make light of them. Accidents even more extraordinary had
happened in fogs before now. He related how two companies of the Naval
Brigade, under Sevastopol, had come within an ace of firing on each
other.... He told of the _Milo_, and her wonderful escape, but said
nothing of Vashti. In the midst of his narrative he found himself
wondering what answer he could make if they questioned him again upon
the apparition.

But neither Mrs. Pope nor Miss Gabriel made further allusion to it.
Their silence, for which at first he was merely thankful, began to
puzzle him after a while.

Could it be possible that he, too, had been cheated by an apparition?

He took leave of the ladies at their respective gates, retiring
delicately as soon as, waiting in the road, he had assured himself that
they were within doors. Miss Gabriel admitted herself with a latch-key.
Mrs. Pope's timid knock was answered by her astonished husband, who,
having just returned from the harbour, and assuming his spouse to be
long since in bed and asleep, had lit a candle to explore the
dining-room cellaret.

The front door was shut on their reciprocal surprise, and the
Commandant withdrew. He had sighed, before now, as he had shut Mr. and
Mrs. Pope's front gate after an evening's whist. Doubtless they were a
stupid couple.

* * * * *

A light shone from the Barracks--from the office window to the right of
the door. Within the office Vashti had dragged the sofa across the room
and sat, with her fur cloak thrown back, toasting her shoes before a
warm fire. In the dancing flame of it her diamonds sparkled as she
turned to him.

"Mrs. Treacher is upstairs," she said, "hunting out sheets to air for
me. Now fill your pipe, please, and sit down and tell me all about it."

Major Vigoureux found