he had gone up the hill. That was all. He had never seen
the elder sister again; did not know to this day what business had
taken her away to the mainland, not to return. The younger had married
a pilot, and was now the mother of a growing family in Saaron Island,
which lies next to Brefar, which faces Inniscaw. Her farmstead there
(the solitary one on the island), stood a short way above the landing
quay; and once or twice, catching sight of her in her doorway and
lifting his hat as he went by (for the Commandant was ever polite), he
had found it in his mind to stop and inquire after her sister.

He had never translated this resolve into action. The Commandant--as
everyone knew on the Islands--was "desperate shy," or "that shy you'd
never believe." But the scene had bitten itself upon his memory, and he
recalled it almost as often as he passed the door. He recalled it
to-night, as he stumbled by it in the fog and uphill to his cheerless
lodgings.

What a blind thing was life! blind even as this fog--and his home in it
these cheerless Barracks; to which nevertheless he must cling, in spite
of his honour, an old man, good for nothing, afraid to be found out! He
groped his way to the front door, opened it with his latchkey, lit the
candle which Sergeant Archelaus had considerately placed at the foot of
the stairs, and, climbing them to his bedroom, flung himself on his
knees by the bed.

Now the architect of the Barracks had designed them upon a singular
plan, of which the peculiar inconvenience was that almost every room
led to some other; which saved corridor space, but was fatal to
privacy.

Beyond the Commandant's bedroom, which opened upon the first floor
landing of the main staircase, lay a room in which he kept his fishing
clothes, and in which Sergeant Archelaus sometimes lit a fire to dry
them by.

It was a small room, well shielded from the draughts which raged
through the building in winter; and here Sergeant Archelaus had lit a
fire to-night and sat before it, sewing an artilleryman's stripe upon
the Commandant's cast dress trousers.

Hearing a noise in the outer room, and not expecting his master's
return for at least a couple of hours, he hurried out in some
perturbation, with the trousers flung across his arm--to find the
Commandant kneeling at his devotions.

"I beg your pardon, sir!"

"It's of no consequence," said the Commandant, looking up (but he was
desperately confused). "I--I always say