with her face
lifted to the sunlight. Then she turned, without question or words of
any sort, as she had turned long ago--yet with a difference--and laid
her hand with perfect confidence in his.

* * * * *

THE RETURN GAME

I

"Well played, Hone! Oh, well played indeed!"

A great roar of applause went up from the polo-ground like the surge and
wash of an Atlantic roller. The regimental hero was distinguishing
himself--a state of affairs by no means unusual, for success always
followed Hone. His luck was proverbial in the regiment, as sure and as
deeply-rooted as his popularity.

"It's the devil's own concoction," declared Teddy Duncombe, Major Hone's
warmest friend and admirer, who was watching from the great stand near
the refreshment-tent. "It never fails. We call him Achilles because he
always carries all before him."

"Even Achilles had his vulnerable point," remarked Mrs. Perceval, to
whom the words were addressed.

She spoke with her dark eyes fixed upon the distant figure. Seen from a
distance, he seemed to be indeed invincible--a magnificent horseman who
rode like a fury, yet checked and wheeled his pony with the skill of a
circus rider. But there was no admiration in Mrs. Perceval's intent
gaze. She looked merely critical.

"Pat hasn't," replied Duncombe, whose love for Hone was no mean thing,
and who gloried in his Irish major's greatness. "He's a man in ten
thousand--the finest specimen of an imperfect article ever produced."

His enthusiasm fell on barren ground. Mrs. Perceval was not apparently
bestowing much attention upon him. She was watching the play with brows
slightly drawn.

Duncombe looked at her with faint surprise. She was not often
unappreciative, and he could not imagine any woman failing to admire
Hone. Besides, Mrs. Perceval and Hone were old friends, as everyone
knew. Was it not Hone who had escorted her to the East seven years ago
when she had left Home to join her elderly husband? By Jove, was it
really seven years since Perceval's beautiful young wife had taken them
all by storm? She looked a mere girl yet, though she had been three
years a widow. Small and dark and very regal was Nina Perceval, with the
hands and feet of a fairy and the carriage of a princess. He had seen
nothing of her during those last three years. She had been living a life
of retirement in the hills. But now she was going back to England and
was visiting her old