it back into the crown, replaced the
hat on his head in such a fashion that about eight inches of white
napkin hung down behind. "You must have felt it in Egypt," he went on
--"the sun I mean. It's a bad climate, that Egypt, as I have good
reason to know," and he pointed again to his white hat, which Harold
Quaritch now observed for the first time was encircled by a broad
black band.

"Ah, I see," he said, "I suppose that you have had a loss."

"Yes, sir, a very heavy loss."

Now Colonel Quaritch had never heard that Mr. de la Molle had more
than one child, Ida de la Molle, the young lady whose face remained so
strongly fixed in his memory, although he had scarcely spoken to her
on that one occasion five long years ago. Could it be possible that
she had died in Egypt? The idea sent a tremor of fear through him,
though of course there was no real reason why it should. Deaths are so
common.

"Not--not Miss de la Molle?" he said nervously, adding, "I had the
pleasure of seeing her once, a good many years ago, when I was
stopping here for a few days with my aunt."

"Oh, no, not Ida, she is alive and well, thank God. Her brother James.
He went all through that wretched war which we owe to Mr. Gladstone,
as I say, though I don't know what your politics are, and then caught
a fever, or as I think got touched by the sun, and died on his way
home. Poor boy! He was a fine fellow, Colonel Quaritch, and my only
son, but very reckless. Only a month or so before he died, I wrote to
him to be careful always to put a towel in his helmet, and he
answered, in that flippant sort of way he had, that he was not going
to turn himself into a dirty clothes bag, and that he rather liked the
heat than otherwise. Well, he's gone, poor fellow, in the service of
his country, like many of his ancestors before him, and there's an end
of him."

And again the old man sighed, heavily this time.

"And now, Colonel Quaritch," he went on, shaking off his oppression
with a curious rapidity that was characteristic of him, "what do you
say to coming up to the Castle for your dinner? You must be in a mess
here, and I expect that old Mrs. Jobson, whom my man George tells me
you have got to look after you, will be glad enough to be rid of you
for to-night. What do you say?--take the place as you find it, you
know. I believe that there is a leg of mutton for dinner if there is
nothing else, because instead of minding his own business I saw George
going