rrow and choose the
stuff yourself." He counted out the money into Mrs. Treacher's hand,
and left her curtseying. As he went, he jingled the few coins remaining
in his breeches pocket. They amounted to two-and-seven-pence in
all--and almost a week stood between him and pay-day.

CHAPTER III

THE COMMANDANT FINESSES A KNAVE

"I remember the Bartlemys perfectly," said Miss Gabriel, addressing the
company as they sat around Mr. and Mrs. Fossell's dining-table and
trifled with a light collation of cordial waters and ratafia
biscuits--prelude to serious whist. "I carry them both in my mind's
eye, though I must have been but a tiny child when he succumbed to
apoplexy, and she left the Islands to reside with a married sister at
Scarborough. Very poorly-off he left her. Somehow, our Commanding
Officers have never contrived to save money--even in the old days, when
the post was worth having."

Miss Gabriel said it lightly but pointedly, with a glance at the
Commandant. The company stared at their plates and glasses. It was
well-known that (as Mr. Rogers put it) Miss Gabriel "had her knife
into" the patient man, and there were tongues that attributed her
spitefulness to disappointment. Fifteen years ago, when Major Narcisse
Vigoureux--no longer in his first youth, but still a man of handsome
presence--had first arrived in the Islands to take over his command,
Miss Gabriel was a not uncomely woman of thirty. _Partis_ in the
Islands are few, as you may suppose. He was a bachelor, she a spinster;
she had money, and he position. What wonder, then, if the Islanders
expected them to make a match of it?

For some reason, the match had never come off, and although she might
convince herself that the simplest reason--incompatibility--was the
true one, Miss Gabriel could hardly have been unaware that the women
looked upon her as one who had missed her chance, and even blamed her a
little--as women always will in such cases--in a conspiracy of sex
acknowledging its weakness. Perhaps this made her defiant.

She was handling the Commandant truculently to-night.

"Of course," she continued, "even in those days the post--don't they
say the same in England of a Deanery?--was looked upon as finishing a
man's career. I don't know, for my part, the principle upon which the
Horse Guards--it used to be the Horse Guards--sent Colonel Bartlemy
down to us."

"By selection, ma'am," said the Commandant, still patiently, as she
paused; "