to marry the old
fool." He paused and added contemplatively, "'Twould be something in
your line to be sure. Women were always your game."

"You didn't whistle me out to tell me this," said Mr. Whitmore
stiffly.

"No, I did not. I want ten pounds."

Mr. Whitmore groaned. "Look here, Leicst--"

"Be careful!"

"But this makes twice in ten days. It's pushing a man too hard
altogether!"

"Not a bit of it," Letcher assured him cheerfully. "You're too
devilish fond of your own neck, my lad; and I know it too devilish
well to be come over by that talk." He chuckled to himself.
"How's the beauty down at the cottage?"

"I don't know," Mr. Whitmore answered sulkily. "Is Plinlimmon
there?"

"No, he's not; and you ought to know he's not. Where have you been,
all day?"

The curate was silent.

"He'll be down again on Saturday, though. Leave of absence is going
cheap, just now. I've an idea that our marching orders must be about
due. Maybe I'll be able to run down myself, though my father hadn't
the luck to be a friend of the Colonel's. If I don't, you're to keep
your eye lifting, and report."

"Is there really a chance of the order coming?" asked Mr. Whitmore,
with a shake in his low voice.

"Dissemble your joy, my friend! When it comes, I shall call on
you for fifty. Meanwhile I tell you to keep your eye lifting.
The battalion's raw, yet. About the order, it's only my guesswork,
and before we sail you may yet do the christening."

"It's damnable!"

"Hush, you fool! Gad, if somebody hasn't heard you! Who's _that_?"

They held their breath; and I held mine, pressing my body into the
mock-orange bush until the twigs cracked. Mr. Jack Rogers stepped
out upon the verandah, and stood by one of the pillars, not a dozen
yards from me, contemplating the sky where the dawn was now beginning
to break over the dark shrubberies. I heard the two men tip-toeing
away through the laurels.

He, too, seemed to catch the sound, for he turned his head sharply.
But at that moment Miss Belcher's voice called him back into the
room.

A minute later he reappeared with a loaf of bread in either hand, and
walked moodily past my bush without turning his head or observing me.

I faced about cautiously and looked after him. From the end of the
verandah the ground, sheltered on the right by a belt of evergreen
trees, fell away steeply to a valley where, under the paling sky, a
sheet of water glimmered. Towards thi