otioned him to be
seated in one of the large cane chairs before her.

"Captain Irwin is not at home," she began, evidently struggling with
severe embarrassment. "He has ridden off to inspect his squadron, and
will not be home, as he told me, before daybreak."

Heideck did not quite understand why she told him this. Had he been a
flirt, convinced of his own irresistibility, he would perhaps have
found in her words a very transparent encouragement; but he was far from
discerning any such meaning in Edith's words. The respect in which he
had held this beautiful young wife, since the first moment of their
acquaintance, sufficiently protected her from any such dishonourable
suspicions. That she had bidden him there at a time when she must know
that their conversation would not be disturbed by the presence of her
husband, must assuredly have had other reasons than the mere desire for
an adventure.

And as he saw her sitting before him, with a look of deep distress on
her face, there arose in his heart no other than the honest wish to
be able to do this poor creature, who was evidently most unhappy, some
chivalrous service.

But he had not the courage to suggest anything of the sort before she
had given him in an unequivocal way a right to do so. Hence it was that
he waited in silence for anything further that she might wish to say.
And there was a fairly long and somewhat painful pause before Mrs.
Irwin, evidently collecting all her courage, went on: "You witnessed
the scene that took place last evening in the officers' mess between my
husband and Captain McGregor? If I have been rightly informed, I owe it
solely to you that my husband did not, in the excitement of the moment,
lay hand on himself."

Heideck turned modestly away.

"I did absolutely nothing to give me any claim to your gratitude, Mrs.
Irwin, and I do not really believe that your husband would have so far
forgot himself as to commit such a silly and desperate deed. At the last
moment, a thought of you would certainly have restrained him from taking
such a step."

He was surprised at the expression of disdain which the face of the
young wife assumed as he said this, and at the hard ring in her voice,
when she replied--

"Thoughts of me? No! how little you know my husband. He is not wont
to make the smallest sacrifice for me, and, maybe, his voluntary death
would not, after all, be the worst misery he is capable of inflicting on
me."

She saw the look