Newcombe' he called
himself when he was with us."

"A soldier!"

"He certainly was, and my servant; about the most decent,
straightforward, childlike chap that ever I saw."

"God!"

"You're surprised. But it's a fact. That's Newcombe all right. You
couldn't forget a face and a laugh like his. The handsomest man I've
ever seen, bar none. He borrowed a suit of my clothes, the beggar, when
he vanished. But a week later I had the things back with a letter. He
trusted me that far. I tried to trace him, of course, but was not sorry
I failed."

"A letter!"

"Yes, giving a reason for his desertion. Some chap was running after his
girl and had got her in a corner and bullied her into saying 'Yes,'
though she hated the sight of him. I'd have done anything for Tom. But
he took the law into his own hands. He disappeared--we were at
Shorncliffe then if I remember rightly. The chap had joined to get
abroad, and he told me all his harum-scarum ambitions once. I hope the
poor devil was in time to rescue his sweetheart, anyway."

"Yes, he was in time for that."

"I'm glad."

"Should you see him again, Tremayne, I would advise your pretending not
to know him. Unless, of course, you consider it your duty to proclaim
him."

"Bless your life, I don't know him from Adam," declared the Major. "I'm
not going to move after all these years. I wish he'd come back to me
again, all the same. A good servant."

"Poor brute! What's the procedure with a deserter? Do you send soldiers
for him or the police?"

"A pair of handcuffs and the local bobby, that's all. Then the man's
handed over to the military authorities and court-martialled."

"What would he get?"

"Depends on circumstances and character. Tom might probably have six
months, as he didn't give himself up. I should have thought, knowing the
manner of man, that he would have done his business, married the girl,
then come back and surrendered. In that case, being peace time, he would
only have forfeited his service, which didn't amount to much."

So John Grimbal learned the secret of his enemy at last; but, to pursue
a former simile, the fruit had remained so long out of reach that now it
was not only overripe, but rotten. There began a painful resuscitation
of desires towards revenge--desires long moribund. To flog into life a
passion near dead of inanition was Grimbal's disgusting task. For days
and nights the thing was as Frankenstein's creation of grisly shreds and
patc