quaintances with the
greatest prudence and skill. His Royal Highness the late lamented
Commander-in-Chief had had the greatest regard for Macmurdo on this
account, and he was the common refuge of gentlemen in trouble.

"What's the row about, Crawley, my boy?" said the old warrior. "No
more gambling business, hay, like that when we shot Captain Marker?"

"It's about--about my wife," Crawley answered, casting down his eyes
and turning very red.

The other gave a whistle. "I always said she'd throw you over," he
began--indeed there were bets in the regiment and at the clubs
regarding the probable fate of Colonel Crawley, so lightly was his
wife's character esteemed by his comrades and the world; but seeing the
savage look with which Rawdon answered the expression of this opinion,
Macmurdo did not think fit to enlarge upon it further.

"Is there no way out of it, old boy?" the Captain continued in a grave
tone. "Is it only suspicion, you know, or--or what is it? Any letters?
Can't you keep it quiet? Best not make any noise about a thing of that
sort if you can help it." "Think of his only finding her out now," the
Captain thought to himself, and remembered a hundred particular
conversations at the mess-table, in which Mrs. Crawley's reputation had
been torn to shreds.

"There's no way but one out of it," Rawdon replied--"and there's only a
way out of it for one of us, Mac--do you understand? I was put out of
the way--arrested--I found 'em alone together. I told him he was a
liar and a coward, and knocked him down and thrashed him."

"Serve him right," Macmurdo said. "Who is it?"

Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne.

"The deuce! a Marquis! they said he--that is, they said you--"

"What the devil do you mean?" roared out Rawdon; "do you mean that you
ever heard a fellow doubt about my wife and didn't tell me, Mac?"

"The world's very censorious, old boy," the other replied. "What the
deuce was the good of my telling you what any tom-fools talked about?"

"It was damned unfriendly, Mac," said Rawdon, quite overcome; and,
covering his face with his hands, he gave way to an emotion, the sight
of which caused the tough old campaigner opposite him to wince with
sympathy. "Hold up, old boy," he said; "great man or not, we'll put a
bullet in him, damn him. As for women, they're all so."

"You don't know how fond I was of that one," Rawdon said,
half-inarticulately. "Damme, I followed her like a footman. I ga