ons. Would the need call into evidence
men of giant stature? Have we, in our time, greater potential geniuses
than Grant and Lee?"

McCalloway shook his head. "I question it," he declared. "I question it
most gravely. I am myself a retired soldier. I have met most of the
European commanders of my day, I have campaigned with not a few. Several
have demonstrated this or that element of greatness, but not one the
sheer pre-eminence of genius."

"And yet--" General Prince rose abruptly from his chair, under the
impulse of his engrossed interest. "And yet, there was quite recently,
in the British Army, one figure that to my mind demonstrated true
genius, sir,--positive and undeniable genius. Tragedy claimed him before
his life rounded to fulfilment. Not the tragedy of the field--which is
rather gold than black--but the unholy and--I must believe--the
undeserved tragedy of unwarrantable slander. If General Hector Dinwiddie
had not died by his own hand in Paris, two years ago, he would have
compelled recognition--and history's grudging accolade. It is my belief,
sir, that he was of that mighty handful--the military masters."

For a while, McCalloway offered neither assent nor denial. His eyes
held, as if by some hypnotic influence in the coals, were like those of
the crystal gazer who sees shadowy and troubling pictures, and even in
the hearth-flare the usually high-colour of his Celtic cheeks appeared
faded into a sort of parchment dulness. Such a tide of enthusiasm was
sweeping the other along, though, that his host's detachment and
taciturnity went unobserved.

"Dinwiddie was not the man to have been guilty of those things, which
scandal whispered of him," persisted Prince, with such spirited
animation as might have characterized him had he been confronting a jury
box, summing up for the defence, "but he could not brook calumny." The
speaker paused to shake his head sadly, and added, "So he made the mad
mistake of self-destruction--and robbed Great Britain of her ablest and
most brilliant officer."

"Perhaps," McCalloway suggested in a speculative and far-away voice,
"perhaps he felt that his usefulness to his country was ended when his
name was dragged into the mire."

"And in that he erred. Such a man would have emerged, clean-shriven,
from the smirching of slander. His detractors would have stood damned by
their own infamous falsity--had he only faced them out and given them
the lie."

"Then you believe--in spit