sues? They will all be paid before
Christmas; that ought to be enough for you."

"But it's not enough. Tell me what you are going to do--tell me. I
won't be pushed on one side like a child."

Desmond frowned.

"Well--if you insist on having it, I am going to sell Diamond."

She started and caught at his arm. For all his matter-of-fact
coolness, she knew what those half-dozen words meant to her husband.

"No,--no Theo. Not Diamond! He's the best of them all."

"Exactly. He'll sell quicker and fetch a longer price than any of the
others; that's why--he must go."

"But the tournament? Captain Olliver's mad about winning the Cup this
year."

"I know that. So am I. I shall manage about a third pony, no fear.
Time enough to think of that later. I must go and make out those
advertisements."

He set his teeth upon the word and turned to leave her, but her voice
arrested him half-way to the door.

"Theo!"

"Well?"

"Are you _sure_ there's nothing else that can be done? It--it isn't
fair for you to lose the pony you love best, just because of a few
dressmakers' bills."

At that his pent-up bitterness slipped from leash.

"Upon my soul, Evelyn, you're right. But there's no other way out of
the difficulty, so let's have no more words about it: they don't make
things easier to bear."

CHAPTER XIV.

I SIMPLY INSIST.

"The fountains of my hidden life,
Are, through thy friendship, fair."
--EMERSON.

Not many days later Desmond's advertisements appeared simultaneously
in the only two newspapers of Upper India; and he set his face like a
flint in anticipation of the universal remonstrance in store for him,
when the desperate step he had taken became known to the regiment.

He was captain of the finest polo team on the frontier; the one great
tournament of the year--open to every Punjab regiment, horse and
foot--would begin in less than a fortnight; and he, who had never
parted with a polo pony in his life, was advertising the pick of his
stable for sale. A proceeding so unprecedented, so perplexing to all
who knew him, could not, in the nature of things, be passed over in
silence. Desmond knew--none better--that victory or defeat may hang on
the turn of a hair; that, skilled player though he was, the
introduction of a borrowed pony, almost at the last moment, into a
team trained for months to play in perfect accord was unwise, to say
the least of it; knew also that