se heart was set to court action, danger, hardship in
every conceivable form: a man for whom a girl-wife fresh out from
"Home" seemed as hazardous an investment as could well be imagined.

But with all his fine qualities of head and heart, Theo Desmond was
little given to cool deliberation in the critical moments of life.
This chance-met girl, fragile as a flower and delicately tinted as a
piece of porcelain, full of enthusiasm for her new surroundings and of
a delight half shy, half spontaneous in the companionship of a man so
unlike the _blase_, self-centred youths of her limited experience,
had, for the time being, swept him off his feet. And men are apt to do
unaccountable things during those hot-headed moments when the feet are
actually off the ground.

A moonlight picnic; an hour of isolated wandering in a garden of
tombs; the witchery of the moment; the word too much; the glance that
lingered to a look;--and the irrevocable was upon them. Desmond had
returned to the Frontier, to a circle of silently amazed brother
officers; and in less than three months from their time of meeting the
two had become man and wife.

Honor, having been away in England at the time, had had but a
second-hand hearing of the whole affair; and for all the keenness of
her present disappointment, a natural spark of interest was aroused in
her at the prospect of spending a year with this unequally yoked
husband and wife.

She found her friend awaiting her in the verandah: a mere slip of
womanhood, in a grey habit.

"Oh, _there_ you are at last, Honor!" she cried eagerly. "It's grand
to see you again! I'm dreadfully sorry about Major Meredith--I am,
truly. But it's just lovely getting you on a long visit like this.
Come in and have tea before we start."

And taking possession of the girl with both hands, she led her into
the house, talking ceaselessly as she went.

"It's really very charming of you two to be so pleased to have me,"
Honor said quietly, as she settled herself, nothing loth, in the
spaciousness of Captain Desmond's favourite chair. Then, because her
head still hummed with the clatter of travel, she fell silent;
following with her eyes the movements of this graceful girl-wife,
whose engaging air of frankness and simplicity was discounted, at
times, by an odd lack of both dimly shadowed in the blue-green eyes.

Evelyn Desmond's eyes were, not without reason, her dearest bit of
vanity. The tint of the clear iris suggested