e.... What was it he had heard the senior
soldierly-looking man, whom the other addressed as "General," say
concerning some mutual acquaintance, at breakfast in the dining-car
going up to Kot Ghazi?

"Yes, poor chap, was in the ranks--and no man can escape the
barrack-room taint when he has once lived in it. Take me into any
Officers' Mess you like--say 'There is a promoted gentleman-ranker
here,' and I'll lay a thousand to one I spot him. Don't care if he's
the son of a Dook--nor yet if he's Royal, you can spot him
alright...."

Pleasant hearing for the "landed proprietor," whom a beautiful,
wealthy and high-bred girl proposed to marry!

Tainted or not, in that way--he was _mentally_ tainted, a fact beside
which the other, if as true as Truth, paled into utterest
insignificance.

No--he had taken the right line in replying to Lucille that he was
getting worse mentally, that no doctor would dream of "vetting" him
"sound," that he was not scoundrel enough to come and cause scandal
and "talk" at Monksmead, and that he was going to disappear completely
from the ken of man, wrestle with himself, and come to her and beg her
to marry him directly he was better--sufficiently better to "pass the
doctor," that is. If, meanwhile, she met and loved a man worthy of
her, such a man as Ormonde Delorme, he implored her to marry him and
to forget the wholly unworthy and undesirable person who had merely
loomed large upon her horizon through the accident of propinquity ...

(He could always disappear again and blow out such brains as he
possessed, if that came to pass, he told himself.)

Meanwhile letters to the Bank of Bombay would be sent for, at least
once a year--but she was not to write--she was to forget him. As to
searching for him--he had not quite decided whether he would walk
from Rangoon to Pekin or from Quetta to Constantinople--perhaps
neither, but from Peshawur to Irkutsk. Anyhow, he was going to hide
himself pretty effectually, and put himself beyond the temptation of
coming and spoiling her life. Sooner or later he would be mad, dead,
or cured. If the last--why he would make for the nearest place where
he could get news of her--and if she were then happily married to
somebody else--why--why--she _would_ be happy, and that would make
him quite happy ...

Had the letter been quite sane and coherent--or had he been in a
queer mental state when he wrote it?...

He opened his eyes, saw a vulture within a few yards