ned the letter-case.
There was a letter in it, written in a woman's handwriting, and besides
the letter the portrait of a girl. He glanced at the letter and glanced
at the portrait. Then he passed them on to Dewes.

Dewes looked at the portrait with a greater care. The face was winning
rather than pretty. It seemed to him that it was one of those faces which
might become beautiful at many moments through the spirit of the woman,
rather than from any grace of feature. If she loved, for instance, she
would be really beautiful for the man she loved.

"I wonder who she is," he said thoughtfully.

"I know," replied Luffe, almost carelessly. He was immersed in the second
letter which the Diwan had handed to him.

"Who is it?" asked Dewes.

"Linforth's wife."

"His wife!" exclaimed Dewes, and, looking at the photograph again, he
said in a low voice which was gentle with compassion, "Poor woman!"

"Yes, yes. Poor woman!" said Luffe, and he went on reading his letter.

It was characteristic of Luffe that he should feel so little concern in
the domestic side of Linforth's life. He was not very human in his
outlook on the world. Questions of high policy interested and engrossed
his mind; he lived for the Frontier, not so much subduing a man's natural
emotions as unaware of them. Men figured in his thoughts as the
instruments of policy; their womenfolk as so many hindrances or aids to
the fulfilment of their allotted tasks. Thus Linforth's death troubled
him greatly, since Linforth was greatly concerned in one great
undertaking. Moreover, the scheme had been very close to Linforth's
heart, even as it was to Luffe's. But Linforth's wife was in England, and
thus, as it seemed to him, neither aid nor impediment. But in that he was
wrong. She had been the mainspring of Linforth's energy, and so much was
evident in the letter which Luffe read slowly to the end.

"Yes, Linforth's dead," said he, with a momentary discouragement. "There
are many whom we could more easily have spared. Of course the thing will
go on. That's certain," he said, nodding his head. A cold satisfaction
shone in his eyes. "But Linforth was part of the Thing."

He passed the second letter to Dewes, who read it; and for a while both
men remained thoughtful and, as it seemed, unaware for the moment of the
Diwan's presence. There was this difference, however. Luffe was thinking
of "the Thing"; Dewes was pondering on the grim little tragedy which
these letter