ou've been off colour for some time past. Of course, I've
noticed it. I've seen the look you wear on your face now come over it
at moments when you ought to have been at your best and brightest. I've
seen a look in your eyes when your lips have been smiling that has made
me--uncomfortable. In short, Staff, you are getting on my nerves, and
although I know it's like my cheek to mention the matter, and that
you'll probably curse my impudence, I really should be grateful if
you'd tell me what ails you, still more grateful of you'd let me help
you to get rid of it. I know I'm an interfering idiot, but I'm fool
enough to be fond of you--it's about the only weakness I've got, and I
am ashamed of it--but there it is."

He laughed with a touch of self-contempt, with an attempt at his old
cynicism; but Stafford understood the fictitious character of the
laugh, and as he leant his chin in his hand, he gave a short nod of
acknowledgment.

"Howard, do you remember that time when you and I were at Palmero?" he
said, in a low voice, and as if he were communing with himself rather
than answering his friend. "Do you remember that Italian we met there;
the man who seemed so gay and careless, the man who seemed to have
everything a fellow could desire, and to be the embodiment of
prosperity and success? Do you remember how once or twice you and I saw
a strange look on his face, perhaps while he was at dinner or fooling
with the women in the _salon_--a look as if he had suddenly remembered
something, as if something had flashed upon his mind in the midst of
the laughter and music and brought him face to face with hell? You
pointed him out to me one night; and we wondered what was the matter
with him--until he fell off his horse that day you and I were riding
with him? Do you remember how, when we had unbuttoned his riding-shirt,
we found the 'D' that had been branded on his chest? We knew then what
was the matter with him. He had been a deserter. The pain of hot iron
had died out long ago, but the scar remained. He was no longer a common
soldier, but rich and prosperous, a social success with, perhaps, his
ambition gratified; but the 'D' was there all the time, and every now
and then, even while he was enjoying himself, he could feel the hot
iron burning into his flesh, and he knew within the miserable little
soul of him that he was a cur and a coward; that, driven by fate,
perhaps by some devilish accident of circumstance, he had lost h