ssed to the War Office by the
Lord Proprietor: an unfriendly letter, I may say."

The Commandant's cheeks were already warm with excitement, but at this
their colour deepened.

"I beg you to believe," said he, heartily, "that if Sir Caesar has
written about me, my letter was sent without knowledge of it, and in no
desire to anticipate----"

"My dear fellow," Sir Ommaney interrupted; "I have some little sense
left in my head, I hope. But will you put constraint upon yourself for
a moment to forget these letters, to dismiss the personal question, and
simply to resume our talk."

"I will try," agreed the Commandant, after a painful pause. "But it
will be hard; harder perhaps than you can understand. Honours have come
to you--deservedly, I admit----"

"And too late," Sir Ommaney again took him up. "My dear Vigoureux, when
we knew one another in the old days, honours seemed to both of us the
most desirable thing in the world. Believe me, they always come too
late."

The Commandant looked at him for a moment. "Yes," said he at length,
"we have talked enough of ourselves. And what do we matter, after all?"

They walked back to the Barracks together, side by side, discussing, as
one soldier with another, the problem which the one had opened, on
which the other had brooded in silence for years.

Arrived at his quarters, the Commandant applied the poker to his fire,
motioned Sir Ommaney to the worn armchair, excused himself, and hurried
off to seek Archelaus and discuss the chances of a cup of tea.

Sir Ommaney, left to himself, took a glance round the poverty-stricken
room, and stretched out his long legs to the blaze. The evening air
without had been chilly. The sea-coal in the grate, stirred by the
Commandant's poker, woke to a warm glow with a small dancing flame on
top. Sir Ommaney stared into the glow, lost in thought.... A tapping on
the pane awoke him out of his brown study. He sat upright, but almost
with the same motion he sprang to his feet as a hand pushed open the
window behind him.

There was no light in the room save that afforded by the dancing,
uncertain flame. It wavered, as he turned about, upon the figure of a
woman entering confidently across the sill, and upon a face at sight of
which he drew back almost in terror.

"Pass, friend, and all's well!" said Vashti, with a light laugh, as she
effected her entrance. Then, catching sight of the man confronting her,
she caught at the curtain, and said,