ighness. And your command?'

'At present fifty troopers at the block-houses above Kofn Ford and along
the river. In the winter, during the long dark nights, when there are
many attempts to run illicit goods across the frontier, I shall have,
perhaps, a score or so more.'

'And you are not tired of it?' M. Selpdorf raised his hands.

'So tired, your Excellency, that I am half inclined to let a better man
step into my shoes.'

'But come, come, that is impossible!' returned his Excellency agreeably.
'Are you also tired of our capital, of Revonde?'

'I have had very little opportunity of growing tired of Revonde. I know
nothing of it.'

'But you would prefer Revonde, believe me.'

At this moment an attendant appeared with a card upon a salver. Selpdorf
read the name with the faintest contraction of his brows.

'You will excuse me, M. Rallywood,' he said; 'I must ask you to wait in
the ante-room for a few minutes.'

The ante-room was a long pillared corridor, in which Rallywood found
himself quite alone. He fell at once into speculations as to the meaning
and aim of Selpdorf's late awakened interest in himself. Also the
allusions to Counsellor had probably been made with calculated
intention.

Rallywood understood that each of these two men had the same end in
view; each desired to dissemble his own character. And each of them
succeeded with the many, but failed as between themselves. Selpdorf
posed as the suave, sympathetic, good-natured friend of those with whom
he came in contact; Counsellor, as a man of no account, a rugged
soldier, honest, strong, outspoken, a good agent to act under the
direction of more astute brains, but if left to his own resources
somewhat blunt and blundering.

To do Rallywood justice, he was far more occupied with this last thought
than with the things which bore more directly on his own prospects and
future. At this period his life was comparatively tasteless and void of
interest; there was nothing to look forward to, and the recent past
meant extremes of heat and cold, long solitary rounds ridden by night,
and days rendered so far alike by iron-handed rule and method that one
was driven to mark the lapse of time by the seasons, not by the ordinary
divisions of weeks and months.

As he lounged in a chair full of these thoughts a slight rustle, soft
and silken, like the rustle of a woman's dress, caught his ear. He
turned his head quickly. The corridor with its splendid pillars, wh