d. Certainly let the boy go
to Eton and Oxford. A fine idea, your Highness. The training will widen
his mind, enlarge his ideas, and all that sort of thing. I will myself
urge upon the Government's advisers the wisdom of your Highness'
proposal."

Moreover Dewes failed to carry Luffe's dying message to Calcutta. For on
one point--a point of fact--Luffe was immediately proved wrong. Mir Ali,
the Khan of Chiltistan, was retained upon his throne. Dewes turned the
matter over in his slow mind. Wrong definitely, undeniably wrong on the
point of fact, was it not likely that Luffe was wrong too on the point
of theory? Dewes had six months furlong too, besides, and was anxious to
go home. It would be a bore to travel to Bombay by way of Calcutta. "Let
the boy go to Eton and Oxford!" he said. "Why not?" and the years
answered him.

CHAPTER V

A MAGAZINE ARTICLE

The little war of Chiltistan was soon forgotten by the world. But it
lived vividly enough in the memories of a few people to whom it had
brought either suffering or fresh honours. But most of all it was
remembered by Sybil Linforth, so that even after fourteen years a chance
word, or a trivial coincidence, would bring back to her the horror and
the misery of that time as freshly as if only a single day had
intervened. Such a coincidence happened on this morning of August.

She was in the garden with her back to the Downs which rose high from
close behind the house, and she was looking across the fields rich with
orchards and yellow crops. She saw a small figure climb a stile and come
towards the house along a footpath, increasing in stature as it
approached. It was Colonel Dewes, and her thoughts went back to the day
when first, with reluctant steps, he had walked along that path, carrying
with him a battered silver watch and chain and a little black leather
letter-case. Because of that memory she advanced slowly towards him now.

"I did not know that you were home," she said, as they shook hands. "When
did you land?"

"Yesterday. I am home for good now. My time is up." Sybil Linforth looked
quickly at his face and turned away.

"You are sorry?" she said gently.

"Yes. I don't feel old, you see. I feel as if I had many years' good work
in me yet. But there! That's the trouble with the mediocre men. They are
shelved before they are old. I am one of them."

He laughed as he spoke, and looked at his companion.

Sybil Linforth was now thirty-eight years