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JAMES VRAILLE 
 
 THE STORY OF A LIFE. 
 
JAMES VEAILLE 
 
 Ut man of a fife. 
 
 "3 5 
 
 JEFFERY C. JEFFERY^pu 
 
 " Here is a gentleman, whotn by ch.ince I met." — Taming of the Shrew. 
 " Upon whose faith and honour I repose." — J he Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, 
 
 PALL MALL, S.W. 
 
 1890. 
 
LON'DON : 
 HUNTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 STA3IF0KD STKEET AXD CHAKI.NG CROSS. 
 
^his Jtook is Jlciicatcb let 
 
 ONE WHO WAS THE INSPIRER, AND IN PART THE AUTHOR, OF ALE 
 THAT IS BEST IN IT; WHO RARELY GOT CREDIT FOR WHAT HK 
 HAD DONE, NEVER TOOK IT FOR WHAT HE HAD NOT DONE, SOUGHT 
 IT WHERE IT WAS NOT FREELY FORTHCOMING, OR WITHHELD IT 
 WHEN HE FANCIED IT WAS DUE ; WHO THOUGHT LIGHTLY OF WHAT 
 MOST PEOPLE VALUE, HIGHLY OF WHAT MANY ARE APT TO OVER- 
 LOOK, MADE LITTLE OF WHAT OTHERS ADMIRED IN HIM, AND 
 MUCH OF WHAT THEY HAD NEVER BEFORE RECOGNISED IN 
 THEMSELVES ; SO FAR AS I HAVE HAD OPPORTUNITIES OF JUDGING, 
 AND I HAVE HAD MANY, FOR HE IS 
 
 MY FATHEE. 
 
CONTENTS TO VOL. I. 
 
 CHAT. 
 
 I. — Law and Love . 
 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE. 
 1 
 
 11. — Engagements . 
 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 III. — Uncle Ben 
 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 IV. — -Young Folks at Home 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gl 
 
 V. — Hot Weather . 
 
 
 
 
 
 76 
 
 VI. — His Chance 
 
 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 VII. — Good-bye . 
 
 
 
 
 
 116 
 
 VIII.— Work 
 
 
 
 
 
 136 
 
 IX. — Action 
 
 
 
 
 
 160 
 
 X. — Pines and Rhododendrons 
 
 
 
 
 
 187 
 
 XI. — Home 
 
 
 
 
 
 212 
 
" Suppose for a moment that our conduct at great epochs was deter- 
 mined entirely by reflection, without the immediate intervention of 
 feeling which supersedes reflection, our determination as to the right 
 would consist in an adjustment of our individual needs to the dire 
 necessities of our lot, partly as to our natural constitutions, partly as 
 sharers of life with our fellow-beings. Tragedy consists in the terrible 
 difficulty of this adjustment — 
 
 ' The dire strife 
 Of poor Humanity's afflicted will, 
 Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny.' 
 
 " Looking at individual lots, I seemed to see in each the same story, 
 wrought out with more or less tragedy, and I determined the elements 
 of my drama under the influence of these ideas." 
 
 George Eliot. 
 
JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 LAW AND LOVE. 
 
 The news spread like wildfire through the garrison. 
 Some said that the colonel had been perfectly right to 
 place him in arrest, others that Vraille was as innocent 
 of the charge as the babe unborn. Opinions were 
 conflicting ; but all agreed that a general court-martial 
 would be the inevitable result, and that, if guilty, it 
 would go very hard with the culprit. The cautious 
 presumed that Colonel Dare would never have proceeded 
 to such extremes without good reason, while the 
 sanguine declared that he was a pompous old idiot, 
 and that there was not a shred of evidence against the 
 prisoner. Only one thing was certain, and that was a 
 court-martial. 
 
 Colonel Dare himself had no doubt at all as to the 
 rectitude of his own conduct in the matter : he, at any 
 rate, had made no mistake. When the responsibilities 
 of commandant of the station had devolved upon him 
 with all the attendant dignity of the position, he had 
 told his wife that discipline must be maintained, and 
 that he was determined to wheel every one into line 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
 *> 
 
2 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 and show once for all that he was a man not to be 
 trifled with. This Captain Yraille had the reputation 
 of being a wild, dissolute young fellow, with no respect 
 for authority ; in fact, a gentleman whose conduct had 
 more than once been the subject of the colonel's 
 comment. He had at last committed a serious offence, 
 and must be made an example of. 
 
 " Pour encourager les autres" put in his daughter, 
 Edith Dare, who had been silently listening to her 
 father's remarks. She was barely twenty years of age, 
 so the commandant paid no heed to her flippant 
 French, but kept his eyes fixed upon his wife's placid 
 face as if expecting a reply. Mrs. Dare applauded his 
 resolution in a lady-like way, and languidly agreed to 
 all he said. 
 
 " Quite right, my love," she assented ; " and, Edith," 
 she continued, " you had better not dance with Captain 
 Vraille again, if you meet him out anywhere. He is 
 a dissipated young man on his own showing." 
 
 " On his own showing ? " repeated her husband in 
 a questioning tone. 
 
 " I asked him once why his hair was so white." 
 
 " Yes ? " The colonel was all attention. 
 
 " And he whispered in my ear — ' Vice, ma'am, 
 vice'!" 
 
 " I'll teach him ! Edith, what are you laughing at ? 
 It is no laughing matter, let me tell you." 
 
 " Has he not had long service in India ? " asked the 
 girl, " and was he not seriously ill there ? Perhaps 
 that may be the cause of his hair being white." 
 
 " He distinctly told me it was vice," persisted Mrs. 
 Dare. 
 
LAW AND LOVE. 3 
 
 " India or no India," argued the colonel, " lie was 
 drunk when he came into my orderly-room." 
 
 "And what will be the result if it is proved he 
 was ? " asked his daughter. 
 
 " He will probably be cashiered," replied her father 
 sternly, swelling out his chest. 
 
 " A great many people declare that he was perfectly 
 sober, father." 
 
 " Nonsense, child. I regret to say that he was by 
 no means sober." 
 
 " Well," replied his daughter, " all I can say is, that 
 I am sorry you did not give him a chance, as there 
 seems to be so much doubt. I can't help pitying him ; 
 it is a terrible punishment." 
 
 The colonel began to make some comment on his 
 daughter's remark, but cut himself short by testily 
 adding — "but there, you know nothing of these 
 things." 
 
 It is at all times annoying to have one's judgment 
 doubted. Doubt is horribly contagious, especially 
 when impulse is beginning to cool. Not that the 
 colonel for a moment doubted the wisdom of the step 
 he had taken ; but to hear others implying even that 
 there was room for doubt was irritating ; it made him 
 feel uncomfortable, and he began to wish that he had 
 kept the whole affair to himself, or, at any rate, had 
 only confided in his wife, who always agreed with him 
 in a sensible way instead of arguing about official 
 matters which, of course, she could not, as a woman, 
 be expected to understand. 
 
 "I don't believe," continued his daughter after a 
 pause, " that he is half so dissipated as people try to 
 
 b 2 
 
4 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 make out. Now that he is down they are finding out 
 all sorts of things about him which they never knew 
 before. It does not seem fair. He is engaged to a 
 girl in London and that is why he is away so much." 
 
 " I cannot listen to tittle-tattle," returned her father, 
 gathering up some papers off a side-table. " I go into 
 court to give evidence on facts, not on hearsay, and my 
 mind must not be biassed one way or the other." 
 
 " But you have been listening to a whole lot of things 
 against him from mother." 
 
 " Edith, Edith," ejaculated that weary-eyed lady, 
 " how can you speak so to your father on things you 
 know nothing at all about ? " 
 
 The commandant left the room, saying he wanted an 
 hour's undisturbed quiet in his study to prepare his 
 evidence. 
 
 The case excited a good deal of attention, and of 
 course got into the newspapers. In this way James 
 Yraille gained a certain notoriety which some people 
 said he would never have acquired in any other. 
 
 In spite of the remonstrances of his friends he 
 refused to allow any one to help him in his defence. 
 " No," he said, when pressed to change his mind, " I 
 will conduct my own case, and it shall be tried on its 
 merits." He refused to make any sort of preparation 
 for his trial, beyond naming half-a-dozen witnesses 
 whom he intended to call; he declined even to read 
 up the law on the subject, saying that military law 
 was not common law, but common sense, and that he 
 knew quite enough about procedure not to make an 
 ass of himself. They begged him at least to protest 
 his innocence in a memorial, which he could lay before 
 
LAW AND LOVE. 5 
 
 the court in accordance with custom ; but he im- 
 patiently declared that he would do nothing of the 
 sort. 
 
 Dissipated ! It was a mild term to apply to a man 
 who was supposed to have committed every social 
 enormity under the sun short of a criminal offence. 
 But no two opinions about him seemed to tally. He 
 was reticent and rude, dogmatical and submissive, 
 hilarious and melancholy, bright and dull ; he was 
 everything by turn and nothing long, everything a 
 little and nothing much. Perhaps he was shy, perhaps 
 over-sensitive ; no one seemed to know exactly ; and 
 it would have taken a cleverer man than Colonel Dare 
 to form any true conception of a character containing 
 apparently such conflicting tendencies. Suffice it to say, 
 that the colonel was as capable of sympathising with 
 a man like Yraille as a salamander with a Polar bear. 
 
 Unfortunately, perhaps, for Vraille this was not the 
 first occasion on which the colonel had formed an 
 unfavourable impression of him. Colonel Dare, when 
 he stood upon the hearthrug, his legs wide apart, his 
 hands clasped behind his back, his chin on a level with 
 his nose, and a cigar sticking up straight from his face 
 like the funnel of a broad-beamed tug-boat, was a very 
 formidable commandant indeed. On these occasions 
 the amount of information he managed to impart to a 
 knot of idlers, trying to read their newspapers when 
 his eye was not upon them, was extraordinary. It was 
 no use attempting to fix your attention on anything 
 but that voice — you had to hear it — you had to be 
 instructed, whether you liked it or not ; it was part of 
 your duty. 
 
6 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 He had been holding forth one day with ponderous 
 exactitude for some time when Yraille, who had been 
 watching him with cold scrutiny and silently taking in 
 every word that fell from his lips, suddenly interrupted 
 him in the midst of an anecdote. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked the irritated colonel, 
 puffing out his cheeks like a pair of scarlet air-balloons. 
 
 " I mean that, as I happen to know the girl of whom 
 you are speaking and was present, I thought you 
 might not like to disparage a lady to a friend of 
 hers unwittingly." 
 
 " Certainly," said the colonel, glowering at his junior, 
 and the subject dropped. 
 
 When Vraille's major came to hear of this little 
 episode, he delivered a semi-parental lecture to his 
 prematurely grey young captain, to the effect that no 
 doubt Yraille was perfectly right in the ordinary sense 
 of the word, but that to beard a commanding officer in 
 his own mess was not right ; to say the least of it, it 
 was inexpedient, and expediency was the golden rule 
 of the service. 
 
 "But I am engaged to marry the girl," protested 
 Yraille. " Am I to listen " 
 
 " My dear fellow, I congratulate you with all my 
 heart, but it would not have hurt either you or the 
 young lady to let old Dare ramble on — he meant 
 nothing by what he said. It's no use kicking against 
 the pricks, you'll only hurt yourself. Expediency, my 
 dear chap, always bear expediency in mind whatever 
 you do, and then it shall follow as the night, etc. — you 
 know the rest." 
 
 This was very good advice, and Yraille learnt the 
 
LAW AND LOVE. 7 
 
 first lesson of many that made him the man he was in 
 after-years. A chance of going on detachment with a 
 draft occurring shortly afterwards, he again found 
 himself listening to the advice of his mentor, and 
 subsequently took charge of the draft. 
 
 On the morning of his return to head-quarters, after 
 a night at sea and a long journey by rail, he found 
 on arrival that his orders directed him to report 
 himself to the colonel commanding the station. His 
 baggage was lying about his room in a state approxi- 
 mately chaotic, and his servant was at his wits' end to 
 find his master's things. His gloves wanted pipe- 
 claying, his boots blacking, his sword burnishing ; and 
 Vraille started off, breakfastless, rather late, hot, 
 flurried, and worse " turned out " than he had ever 
 been before in his life. Having, as he thought, a 
 minute or two to spare, he rushed into the mess on his 
 way, and, finding the breakfast things all cleared 
 away, drank off a glass of sherry, crammed a biscuit 
 into his mouth, and rushed out again. 
 
 Eunning up the stone steps in front of the colonel's 
 orderly-room door he had the misfortune to trip over 
 his sword and fall. One trouser leg was cut across 
 the knee. With a flushed face and many apologies 
 for his appearance, he presented himself before his 
 superior. Colonel Dare looked at his dusty figure 
 without speaking, and coldly dismissed him. He had 
 heard the clatter of Yraille's fall through the open 
 window; he had noticed his dishevelled state, his 
 halting manner, his flushed face, and had smelt the 
 strong odour of sherry, supposing it to be whisky, 
 which Yraille had brought with him into the room. 
 
8 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 The conclusion was obvious, the offence heinous, the 
 retribution swift. 
 
 If any one had suggested to the colonel that possibly 
 a pre-existing prejudice had led him to act rather 
 more precipitately than he would have done had 
 Vraille been any other man, he would have indignantly 
 repudiated the idea, and emphatically denied that any 
 motive other than a stern sense of duty had prompted 
 his actions — and he would only have been saying what 
 he fully and conscientiously believed. Had he not the 
 evidence of his senses ? Was he blind or deaf ? Oh, 
 no ; he had done what he had deliberately. 
 
 But no one, save his daughter Edith, had put 
 forward any such suggestion. Yraille, meanwhile, was 
 in arrest ; his guilt or innocence remained to be 
 proved, and until one or the other was established the 
 stereotyped argument, that there are always two sides 
 to a story, could be freely urged. 
 
 The prisoner remained in the same apathetic state, 
 and refused to take any interest in the proceedings. 
 His uncle, the lawyer, came to see him, imploring him 
 to bestir himself and secure the assistance of counsel. 
 As a man of the world, as a lawyer, as an uncle deeply 
 interested in his nephew's cause and the reputation of 
 the family name, Mr. Benjamin Yraille argued with 
 him, and advised him strongly not to rely solely on his 
 own unaided judgment, astutely urging that his very 
 sense of injury might lead him unwittingly into error. 
 But it was all of no avail ; Yraille was obstinate in his 
 determination to stand alone. The sting of the whole 
 thing was, he said, that his character as a soldier and a 
 gentleman was impugned. Was the pure-minded girl 
 
LAW AND LOVE. 9 
 
 he loved to marry a man 'with the opprobrium of 
 " drink " attached to his name ? — and should it ever 
 be in the power of any one to say that he owed his 
 acquittal of such a charge to the astuteness of a lawyer 
 or to some subtle and clever method of defence ? No ! 
 He had been unjustly accused ; he had done nothing to 
 deserve the disgrace of his position, and he could prove 
 his innocence to any intelligent person in five minutes. 
 If there was any justice at all in the system of courts- 
 martial, he was not afraid of the result. The employ- 
 ment of counsel would only lead people to believe that 
 his case wanted careful handling. No ; he would take 
 things as they came, and wanted assistance from no 
 one. 
 
 "It is not the court-martial itself that I care 
 twopence about," he said bitterly ; " it is the injustice 
 that has already been done me. No court-martial can 
 wipe that out. That will always remain the same." 
 
 The day of his trial came, and he stood before the 
 court alone ; without a note, a written declaration, or 
 any other sign of preparation, save his witnesses. In 
 a firm, confident voice, he pleaded " not guilty " to the 
 charge. 
 
 Colonel Dare, the principal witness for the prosecu- 
 tion, stated the circumstances under which the prisoner 
 had visited the orderly-room, swore positively and 
 emphatically that he was then drunk, and summed up 
 the reasons that had led him to this conclusion and to 
 the painful necessity of placing Captain Yraille in 
 arrest. His evidence was then subjected to cross- 
 examination by the prisoner. His answers to the 
 questions put were all duly written down, and, as the 
 
LO JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 catechism continued, the confidence which had marked 
 his manner during his examination-in-chief, little by 
 little, departed, until somehow the accuser began to 
 look far more uncomfortable than the accused. 
 
 " Did Colonel Dare," Vraille asked at last, " send 
 any one after me to confirm his suspicions ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What was that officer's report ? " 
 
 " Sober ; but I myself was so certain — " began the 
 colonel. 
 
 " I do not wish to ask any more questions ! " As 
 Vraille said this he glanced at the witness with a look 
 that brought the blood into the poor colonel's face, 
 dyeing it with deeper flush than it had worn for many 
 a long day. 
 
 Six witnesses for the defence followed, and their 
 examination by the prisoner was marked by the 
 extreme simplicity of the questions put, and the 
 carelessness with which the replies were received — 
 a course which rendered the rigidity of Colonel Dare's 
 recent cross-examination all the more apparent. Still, 
 although Yraille's defence was conducted in an 
 apparently slovenly manner, the points elicited were 
 strong and exact. The court was closed to consider 
 its verdict, and opened again almost immediately to 
 declare the prisoner " honourably acquitted " of the 
 charge. Some of the members rose and shook hands 
 with him, but he did not evince any sign of relief, and 
 barely smiled. 
 
 Many of his brother officers came into his room to 
 congratulate him, and a few, more observant than the 
 rest, left it convinced that the last fortnight had made 
 
LAW AND LOVE. 11 
 
 a greater impression than they would have supposed 
 possible on a man who had taken things so philoso- 
 phically ; his very face and figure, to say nothing of 
 manner, seemed to have changed. 
 
 When at last he was alone he flung himself into his 
 chair and covered his face with his hands. For the 
 first time in his life he was experiencing the sensation 
 of real hatred. 
 
 Luck had never yet in Vraille's life pointed her 
 fairy finger at him in any unmistakable way ; that there 
 was no denying. He had never experienced what is 
 called a real good stroke of luck. Fortunate he was, 
 without doubt ; fortunate in his general surroundings 
 and circumstances, in the possession of a sound consti- 
 tution, robust health, and a not ill-favoured person ; 
 fortunate in a hundred-and-fifty ways, but no one had 
 ever called him a lucky man. Fortune and Luck, it 
 seemed to him, were separate and distinct if sister 
 goddesses. It was said that Fortune favoured the 
 brave, but that a scamp escaped detection, a man 
 suddenly acquired wealth, a gambler made a grand 
 coup, through Luck. Fortune was proverbially fickle, 
 but she was consistency itself compared to Luck — and 
 Luck chose such extraordinary favourites. Look at 
 old Dare ! he had always beeu a lucky man. Look at 
 himself! Perhaps he had been fortunate to get into 
 the army at all, but there had been no luck about it, 
 only hard work ; and, now that he was in, might he 
 not have been luckier had he as a boy started in some 
 other line of life altogether — a lawyer's, for instance, 
 in which his uncle had more than once offered him an 
 opening ? 
 
12 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 Vraille's reasoning, as he sat thinking out these things, 
 was slightly cynical and not exactly logical, perhaps ; 
 bnt then the balance of his mind had, no doubt, been 
 thrown out of its true adjustment by recent events. 
 But through all the gloom there smiled a lovely face 
 whose radiance dissipated the darkness, and at the 
 thought of it he started to his feet and commenced to 
 pack straightway. Ah, after all, he was the luckiest 
 man in London ! 
 
 He experienced no difficulty about getting leave. His 
 own commanding officer, the major, who had sym- 
 pathised with him all through, told him to start at 
 once, and said that he would take upon himself all the 
 responsibility of allowing him to go pending the 
 sanction of his application. The fact was, though 
 every one congratulated him cordially on the result of 
 his trial and declared that it should never have taken 
 place, it was, nevertheless, felt that his immediate 
 departure from the scene of action would be a relief to 
 all concerned. That is the way of the world ; the 
 purest suffer from being pelted with mud ; and Yraille 
 drove out of the barrack-square with a feeling in his 
 heart that he was not wanted — that, though he had 
 proved himself blameless, still his daily presence in 
 the eyes of his accuser was undesirable ; that he had 
 somehow lost caste, and was henceforth a marked 
 man. 
 
 With a sense of relief, amounting even to pleasure 
 compared to the mental strain of uncertainty under 
 which he had been labouring for so long, he sank into 
 the cushioned corner of a smoking compartment, 
 lighted a cigar, and began to brood afresh over the 
 
LAW AND LOVE. 13 
 
 wrong that had been done him. Dare! he would 
 never forget that name as long as he lived. It was 
 branded on his heart. Colonel Dare had set a mark 
 upon him which time would probably obliterate, but 
 the stigma of having been tried would still remain. 
 This was bad enough ; but to be labelled through the 
 mistake of a pompous, ignorant, addle-pated old fool, 
 for whom he had never had any other feeling than 
 contemptuous indifference ! That such men should be 
 invested with authority and power was disgraceful and 
 preposterous. 
 
 In this frame of mind he reached his club, and in 
 an anxious tone inquired at the window of the hall- 
 porter's office if there were any letters awaiting his 
 arrival. When that sedate official had shuffled through 
 the pile he took from a pigeon-hole marked V., and an- 
 swered in the negative, a look of astonished disappoint- 
 ment crossed Vraille's face, and in a hesitating way, that 
 seemed to be trying to stifle anxiety in affected uncon- 
 cern, he asked — " No telegram either ? I was expecting 
 a telegram." There was none, however ; and so, having 
 ordered a room and given directions about his luggage, 
 he sauntered into the smoking-room, and with his hands 
 thrust into his pockets stood moodily looking out of 
 the window, but taking no interest in any of the 
 passers-by except the telegraph boys. 
 
 It was a gloriously bright September afternoon, but 
 there was a dissipated look about the street, as if the 
 sun were shining on a scene that had lately been gay 
 and brilliant but was now dreary and desolate — like 
 the morning rays streaming through the open windows 
 on the remains of a night's carouse. Cabs and 
 
14 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 hansoms, guided by slackened reins, crawled slowly 
 along the curb, their drivers every now and again 
 lifting their whips questioningly to a likely-looking 
 " fare " ; no smart carriages with high-stepping horses 
 rattled past, and even the doctors' broughams did not 
 seem to be in any particular hurry ; many of the 
 foot passengers on the pavements were lounging, and 
 others were assuming as best they could the air and 
 demeanour of " passers through " ; the roadway itself 
 was torn up and partially barricaded with beams 
 placed on trestles, pitch-caldrons, piles of wooden 
 blocks covered with tarpaulins and other signs of 
 Board of "Works repair ; a steam-roller rumbled in 
 the distance, and in the windows of the houses opposite 
 hung the spread-out sheets of daily papers. It was 
 an excellent day for a tramp over the turnips after 
 partridges, or for lolling on the sands at the seaside, 
 but a bad one for the club-lounger left in London. 
 The smoking-room was almost deserted. 
 
 After looking out of the window for some time, 
 Vraille picked up the first edition of an evening paper, 
 but, finding an account of the result of his trial in it, 
 flung it on to the ground, and again sauntered into the 
 hall. Of course no telegram had arrived in the mean- 
 time, or it would have been brought to him ; still, he 
 just made the inquiry to make quite sure, and then 
 glanced up at the hall-clock. He would wait until 
 four o'clock and no longer. 
 
 Four o'clock found him standing on the doorsteps, 
 drawing on his gloves. He was faultlessly attired ; the 
 payment of a visit of some importance was evidently 
 his intention. He gave the expected telegram five 
 
LAW AND LOVE. 15 
 
 minutes' grace, and then jumped into a Lansom and 
 drove off westward. 
 
 At the door of a neat little house in a quiet street 
 somewhere in the neighbourhood of Cabstand Square, 
 S.W., Vraille knocked and was admitted. He ascended 
 the stairs two at a time, and, in a natty little drawing- 
 room on the first floor, awaited the coming of the 
 girl he was engaged to marry. He waited a long 
 time ; but at last the door opened, and before him in 
 all her loveliness stood Lucy Flight — a woman whom 
 men turned round to stare at in the street ; a woman 
 on whom nature had bestowed favours with almost too 
 lavish a hand ; a woman with the face and figure of a 
 classic goddess, and the colouring of a Eubens' model : 
 " A glorious woman for the stage, by all that's en- 
 trancingly histrionic," as Harold Scatter, that well- 
 known connoisseur of forms divine, had feelingly 
 remarked when introduced to her one day at Sandown 
 races. This opinion, however, for some good reason of 
 his own, he did not at the time impart to his friend 
 Vraille ; but, carried away with poetic rapture, said 
 airily : " A coiffure of captured sunbeams, my dear 
 fellow ; I congratulate you on your conquest." He 
 knew nothing then of Yraille's infatuation — it was 
 before any solemn contract had been sealed and posted 
 for the world to read — but he hazarded his congratu- 
 lations on the " off chance," he said. On that off 
 chance, he afterwards declared, he was prepared to 
 give long odds, for Miss Lucy had previously put 
 sundry insinuating little questions to him with respect 
 to Vraille, which Harold Scatter, with characteristic 
 astuteness, had answered all together in the one com- 
 
16 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 prehensive monosyllable, " Heaps " — an answer that 
 had seemed to give his fair questioner much inward 
 satisfaction. 
 
 She was a beautiful woman, truly ; and it was a 
 wonder that she had lived for five-and-twenty years to 
 bear no other name at the end of them than Lucy 
 Flight. Besieged in ball-rooms, surrounded at tea- 
 time, the recipient of bouquets and bangles by the 
 score — the favoured idol of picnics, water-parties, regi- 
 mental race meetings, and, indeed, of all the smaller 
 social functions to which she had the entree — she 
 triumphed in her loveliness and outshone all her 
 compeers. 
 
 As she smilingly advanced, Yraille sprang to meet 
 her, and, holding her two hands in his own, looked into 
 her face with eyes expanding as they looked, and flashing 
 with the fire that had gained for them that epithet of 
 wild. 
 
 " Why did you not write to my club, as I asked, 
 Lucy ? " 
 
 " My dear Jim, I've been so very busy lately, you 
 can't think." 
 
 " Too busy to telegraph, Lucy ? I expected a tele- 
 gram at least ; I waited for one at the club for more 
 than an hour." 
 
 " There, there, don't begin by scolding directly you 
 come to see me ; but give me a kiss and forgive me for 
 forgetting. You came without the telegram, so there's 
 no harm done, after all. Come, don't bear malice, 
 Jim ; give me a kiss and make it up." 
 
 For answer he wound his arms about her, and, 
 catching her to him, kissed her passionately again and 
 
LAW AND LOVE. 17 
 
 again, until she pleaded for mercy. Reluctantly he 
 loosed Lis arms and let her go. Then hand in hand 
 they sat upon a sofa, and began to talk, as Lucy said, 
 sensibly. 
 
 " And what have you been doing with yourself all 
 this time, you naughty boy, never to come and see 
 me?" 
 
 " I have been in arrest in my quarters — I told you,' 1 
 he answered, dropping her hand and turning his head 
 away. 
 
 " But you did not say what for." 
 
 He did not answer at once ; he was biting his under 
 lip and tugging at the end of his moustache. 
 
 " I was court-martialled this morning for drunken- 
 ness," he said at last, abruptly ; then, rising from his 
 seat, he walked across the room to the window opposite, 
 and stood looking out of it with his back to her. 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " that's very dreadful, but very 
 interesting all the same. Come and tell me all about 
 it. What do you walk away like that for ? " 
 
 " I did not wish you to know until I could tell you 
 myself," he said slowly. " I wrote to Mrs. Flight and 
 asked her to keep the papers from you if she could." 
 
 All through his troubles two certainties amid a sea 
 of doubts had sustained and buoyed him up — the cer- 
 tainty of his uncle's unflinching belief in his innocence, 
 and the certainty of Lucy's sympathy, whichever way 
 the tide would turn, when he told her all. 
 
 " I very seldom read the papers, except the Queen 
 and the Morning Post sometimes ; there was nothing 
 about you in either of them, that I saw." 
 
 He turned sharply round and took a step towards her. 
 
 vol. i. c 
 
18 JAMES VRA1LLE. 
 
 " Lucy, Lucy, do you care ? Do you know what a 
 court-martial means ? Have you nothing to say ? " 
 
 " Yes, Jim, of course I have — I have a great deal to 
 say. You were always a wild, dissipated wretch — as 
 wild as a hawk they told me — but I don't mind that. 
 I like a man to be a little wild — it makes him in- 
 teresting — I hate a milksop. That is why I always 
 liked you, I suppose. But you can be wild and naughty 
 without being tried by court-martial." 
 
 " I am not," he exclaimed passionately ; " I am not 
 wild ! If you like to call it wild, I was wild once — 
 that is, I used to do what every one else did. Oh, yes, 
 I was wild enough in that sense — I gambled, I raced, 
 I backed bills, I hunted, I spent more money than I 
 could afford, I drank and smoked more than I ought, 
 I behaved like the usual idiot ; but I might as well 
 have cheated at cards, swindled book-makers, suffered 
 from delirium tremens half my life, and been put in 
 jail for shop-lifting — give a dog a bad name and hang 
 him — my reputation now is much the same, and I am 
 dissolute and wild ! " In his excitement he half 
 stretched out his hands before him, in a way that was 
 partly indignant, partly suppliant, but wholly piteous ; 
 then changing his manner, and lowering his tone, he 
 continued, in a different, softened strain : " Lucy," he 
 said, seating himself beside her again and taking her 
 hand, " you know that I have given up all that ; you 
 know that I promised you I would that day, although 
 you did not ask me for any promise ; you know, or you 
 ought to know, that I have kept my promise from that 
 day to this." 
 
 Her face as she listened to him flushed slightly with 
 
LAW AND LOVE. 19 
 
 the keenness of her pleasure. Jim was in one of his 
 adorably passionate moods, when she felt most of all 
 that she really loved him. His admiration of her 
 always seemed to her then so far more intense and 
 sincere than any other man's with whom she had ever 
 flirted to pass away the time. 
 
 "My darling Jim," she said softly, "you look so 
 handsome when you speak like that. Why did you 
 give up all your pleasures for me, dear ? " 
 
 " I knew no real pleasure till I met you, Lucy, or 
 pain either." 
 
 "But why did you give up your — your pursuits, 
 then ? " she persisted, insinuating the soft hand he 
 released as he flung his arm round her waist into his 
 other hand which rested on his knee. 
 
 " Because from the first moment I saw you I was 
 changed. I could think of nothing day and night but 
 your sweet face; it haunted me awake and asleep — 
 your eyes were always looking at me. After I had 
 seen you once, I went everywhere to meet you— oh, 
 you know, you know it all," he broke off ; "I have told 
 it you a hundred times before." 
 
 " Tell me again, Jim ; I love to listen." 
 
 " Yes, but does telling make you understand ? " 
 
 " Of course I understand." 
 
 " I think you will in time," he said softly, half to 
 himself " My ambition is attained, the only one I 
 ever really had." 
 
 " Yes, dear, you have won." 
 
 Vraille wondered in his heart if he had in very truth 
 conquered, and at first felt tempted to inquire : " What 
 if I had been found guilty to-day, and were soon to be 
 
 c 2 
 
20 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 turned out of the army in disgrace ? " but put that 
 thought away as an unworthy thing. 
 
 "I am honourably acquitted," he said. 
 
 " Kh. ! I am so glad." She looked what she said, 
 and sighed. 
 
 He turned to her, and, taking her face between his 
 hands, gazed silently into her eyes as if to read in 
 their blue depths the verdict that he had been too 
 great a coward to listen to in words. Eeassured 
 apparently by what he saw, he bent his head and 
 kissed her. 
 
 " It has often crossed my mind to ask you something, 
 Lucy," he said in a deep thick voice, " but I have 
 never had the courage. Do you ever repent your 
 promise to me ? If there is a shade of doubt in your 
 mind about the step you are about to take, tell me, 
 and I will leave you. I will never trouble you again. 
 I will not promise a whole lot of things about ever- 
 lasting constancy and such nonsense, but you shall 
 hear of me no more. I have a chance — a desire, I 
 mean — of going to India, right away from you. I can 
 take it now better than at another time. Shall I?" 
 
 "No," she said, without a moment's hesitation, 
 " unless you take me with you. But I have a horror 
 of India ; neither of us need go, surely." 
 
( 21 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 ENGAGEMENTS. 
 
 The whole duty of man is complex and manifold ; the 
 whole duty of Mrs. Flight was simple and twofold. 
 The main objects of her existence were to chaperon 
 her daughter and to study contemporary history and 
 politics. Between these two occupations she divided 
 her time, regarding the one as a duty tinged with 
 pleasure, the other as a pleasure tinged with duty : she 
 hated balls and parties, but liked to know what was 
 going on in Lucy's immediate vicinity; she hated Mr. 
 Gladstone, but took the keenest interest in all he said 
 and did. 
 
 She was a quaint little old lady to be the mother of 
 such a splendid creature as Lucy Flight ; but society 
 did not trouble itself much about the chaperon in its 
 devotion to her beautiful charge, and only imagined, 
 if it gave the subject a thought at all, that the beauty's 
 father must have been a singularly handsome man. 
 During the lifetime of that legal luminary (then 
 second partner of the eminent firm, Bite, Flight & Co., 
 of which Mr. Bite junior was the Co. in waiting), his 
 wife had enjoyed the luxuries of a very comfortable 
 income, but at his death little but the mantle of his 
 astuteness had fallen on his widow. 
 
 Mrs. Flight was a shrewd woman, and, by keeping 
 
22 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 the accounts of her little house near Cabstand- Square 
 always slightly in debt, she was enabled to provide 
 herself with all the political literature of the day and 
 her daughter with fashionable amusement and well- 
 executed ball-dresses. But as time went on and the 
 tide of political print seemed to be always on the flood, 
 while the receding focus of the old lady's vision set in 
 steadily on the ebb, Mrs. Flight found it more and 
 more difficult to keep abreast of the times, and began 
 to wish with all her heart that Miss Lucy would secure 
 the services of a permanent chaperon for life and buy 
 her own ball-dresses ; she wanted to tuck her toes up 
 on the fender, eschew frivolity, curtail expense, and 
 read in peace for the remainder of her days. Lucy's 
 engagement to Vraille, was, therefore, a subject of calm 
 gratification to Mrs. Flight, and she was on all occasions 
 that gentleman's strong ally. 
 
 " My dear Lucy," she said on the day succeeding 
 Vraille's visit, " it is positively irritating to hear you 
 talk in the way you have been doing about the colour 
 of a man's hair, when everything else about him is all 
 that a girl could want, — and, if you don't like his hair, 
 you can dye it easily enough after you are married. 
 But I should leave it alone if I were you. Look at his 
 beautiful brown eyes and moustache, — the very contrast 
 makes him handsome to my mind. Besides, beggars 
 can't be choosers, Lucy, and we are practically 
 beggars." 
 
 " That's not my fault," put in Lucy. 
 
 " Yes, it is ; this last season of yours has nearly 
 finished us, and here we are, obliged to stay in London 
 when the very tradespeople are all at the seaside. Not 
 
ENGAGEMENTS. 23 
 
 that I mind much, for, when you're married, I shall 
 live on here in peace, except for a trip now and again 
 during the recess to the Buxton "Wells." 
 
 " It's this idea of India I don't like," said Lucy, 
 pouting her pretty lips and contracting her fair brow. 
 " He is bent on going back to India." 
 
 " He was very ill there before," said Mrs. Flight 
 grimly. " Take comfort from that fact, if you won't 
 from any other." 
 
 Nothing in her daughter's face showed that she 
 resented or even appreciated the significance of her 
 mother's retort as she placidly continued : " The prospect 
 of being exiled in a wild country, with a sick husband, 
 is not particularly pleasant, you must allow." 
 
 "Exiled? wild? — nonsense, child! You are five- 
 and-twenty; you have had your chances and missed 
 them. I don't wish to say anything harsh, but to put 
 it mildly, my dear, you are not clever ; and though, 
 perhaps, you might have managed matters better once, 
 you certainly won't now. And you have nothing 
 whatever to grumble about ; you ought to consider 
 yourself an exceedingly lucky girl. You like society, 
 you'll have plenty ; you love admiration, you need not 
 be afraid of that falling off for another dozen years, at 
 least ; you hate thought, and books, and politics, you're 
 going to leave them behind you. What more do you 
 want ? " 
 
 Lucy never quite understood her mother, and had 
 learnt from experience that little was to be gained by 
 argument or contradiction. She contented herself by 
 changing the subject and taking no notice of these 
 equivocal compliments. 
 
24 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 " He wants me to go and see his uncles and aunts 
 and things," she said. 
 
 " Of course he does ; he would not be the man he is 
 if he didn't. Go and see them, and don't make a fool 
 of yourself. Your best chance of not doing so is to 
 say as little as possible ; rely on your looks, my dear — 
 rely on your looks, and you won't go far wrong. Any 
 good-looking woman can win a man, but it takes a 
 clever one to keep him, so mind what you are about ; " 
 and the little lady chuckled to herself as if pleased at 
 her own remarks. After a pause she continued : — 
 
 " Ah, your father was a clever man, and I'm no fool ; 
 your sisters took all the brains and left you all the 
 looks, and yet they married first ; and, now that I think 
 of it, let me give you a little piece of gratuitous advice. 
 If you want to win a man's heart, let him talk as 
 much as ever he likes about himself and listen, especially 
 when his heart is sore ; don't drag him off to a theatre 
 instead, as you did Jim last night." 
 
 " He wanted to go." 
 
 "Did he?" asked Mrs. Flight, in a tone that 
 implied " he did nothing of the sort." 
 
 " Certainly he did." 
 
 " Did he suggest it ? " 
 
 " No, not exactly." 
 
 " I thought not ; let all suggestions come from him 
 for a time." 
 
 " Oh, I shall be all right, mother, never fear," said 
 Lucy languidly, stretching her beautiful figure at full 
 length on the sofa and stifling a yawn. " He is very 
 much in love with me — very much indeed, I think — 
 and talks about our being married at once." 
 
ENGAGEMENTS. 2d 
 
 " Agree to that," said Mrs. Flight tartly. 
 
 " He's coming to lunch, you know — I asked hirn — and 
 he's going to take me out afterwards." 
 
 " Go about with him as much as ever you like, my 
 dear, only remember what I have told you. Be careful 
 — there's many a slip, etc., even when the lip is as 
 pretty as yours." 
 
 Lucy promised to be careful with an air of assurance, 
 as if confident in the power of her charms unaided by 
 any care ; and then they discussed Vraille's recent 
 court-martial in all its bearings. Mrs. Flight said that 
 it was a trump card in her daughter's hand, properly 
 held and properly played. Lucy said she fancied it 
 was a disgrace any way, but that she supposed Jim did 
 not drink ; she hoped not, for her own sake. They then 
 chatted about the position of affairs generally until 
 Vraille came in to lunch. 
 
 He was as radiant as a sallow-complexioned, grey- 
 haired young man could be, with a flower in his button- 
 hole, brightly shining boots, and a brand-new silk hat. 
 He brought a present for Lucy with him, a spray of 
 gardenias and maiden-hair, which he presented with 
 shy gallantry. She held the flowers to her delicate 
 nostrils, looking up at him with her grand eyes as she 
 did so, and smiled her gratitude. 
 
 Luncheon was devoted to an animated discussion on 
 the Irish question, in which Lucy did not join. Mrs. 
 Flight argued, , declaimed, and apostrophised to her 
 heart's content. Vraille rather erijoyed hearing her 
 talk, for her remarks were much to the point and she 
 knew her subject; but Lucy made an early pretext for 
 escape, and her face wore a weary expression until 
 
26 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 Vraille brought to the door the patentest of patent 
 hansoms he could find in Cabstand Square. 
 
 They drove to Bond Street, where he bought his 
 fiancee an emerald and ruby ring, just to see, as he 
 explained, the size of her finger, so that the awkward 
 necessity of having it measured for a plainer ornament 
 later on might be avoided. Then they walked to the 
 National Gallery, the only exhibition of pictures in 
 London which Lucy had never seen. Here Vraille told 
 her stories of the scenes and incidents represented in 
 the pictures, while she held the catalogue and listened. 
 He was a mine of information, and told her a hundred 
 things of which the catalogue contained not a single 
 word. He had spent hours in the gallery as a boy, he 
 said, and his childish fancy had attached stories to some 
 of the men and women in the pictures, especially to 
 the less important figures of the larger canvases, 
 which he had never afterwards been wholly able to 
 forget ; some particular faces — and he pointed out one 
 or two to her — always seemed to look at him with 
 kindly recognition when he entered the room in which 
 they hung, as if they were old friends welcoming him 
 back to their society. And in a sense they were old 
 friends ; he knew them so well that his interest in them 
 always drew his attention away from the other faces 
 surrounding them, and, in some cases, their stories — 
 the stories, that is, that he himself had made up about 
 them — were more familiar to him than even the central 
 idea of the picture itself. Half laughingly he outlined 
 the past histories of a man here and a woman there, or 
 connected the lives of a boy in one picture and a girl 
 in another, and sketched their futures until he brought 
 
ENGAGEMENTS. 27 
 
 them together living happily in a third. He traced the 
 sequence of events that changed the child sitting on 
 its mother's knee in one room into the boy riding on a 
 pony in the next, and so on, from room to room, from 
 boyhood to manhood, from manhood to old age. 
 
 " That is the last time we see him," he said, pointing 
 to a figure in the background of a group. " There he 
 is, standing on one side, frowning slightly and taking no 
 part in the action of the scene. All through his life it 
 has always been the same," Yraille continued, speaking 
 as earnestly as if the story he was telling were the 
 actual history of the man ; " we have always seen him 
 standing on one side, taking, apparently, but little 
 interest in what is going on, neither helping nor 
 hindering those about him, but just standing aloof, 
 thinking. Though every one knows him, he is not a 
 person of any particular importance, and if he does or 
 says anything it is just what any one of those about 
 him might do or say ; and of course he is judged by his 
 actions and speech. To the outer world he is just as 
 we see him there — unimportant without being insignifi- 
 cant ; interesting, perhaps, but in no way remarkable. 
 He knows all this ; he knows his character in the eyes 
 of the world well enough ; he can judge himself as 
 easily as others can. But that man is not he ; he is 
 always living two lives — one in the world, one in him- 
 self. He, in some strange sense which he cannot 
 understand, stands by seeing and hearing that man say 
 and do things, and judging him like any one else. He 
 himself — the himself that no one knows or ever will 
 know — without necessarily condemning that man's 
 actions, is powerless to control them, and without the 
 
28 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 desire to alter the words in his mouth listens to him as 
 he might to any other fellow being. I suppose we are 
 all more or less like that man. Oh, often and often " — 
 he exclaimed, taking his eyes off the picture and looking 
 at the beautiful face beside him — " often and often 
 have I felt that I am some other person than myself, 
 looking out on myself, judging myself, and yet helpless 
 to alter myself. Often in speaking to any one I feel I 
 am standing by listening to that creature whom the 
 world identifies with me, but who is no more me than 
 the person he is talking to. I can't explain myself 
 better, and, of course, you cannot understand ? " 
 
 There was a question in his tone though none in 
 his remark, and he looked at his companion as if 
 hoping for, rather than expecting, an answer ; but none 
 came. 
 
 " Of course not — not yet," he said. " But sometimes 
 I have thought, Lucy, that two people might learn to 
 know each other, in course of time, so intimately that 
 even that secret self — which is not conscience, for 
 conscience need not be secret— might be mutually 
 revealed and blended in the spirit." 
 
 Lucy thought that perhaps what he said was 
 possible, but was absolutely certain that it was high 
 time for them to be going, for " the days were 
 shortening wonderfully," and " winter would be upon 
 them before they knew where they were ; " the evening 
 was fast drawing in, and he had promised to take her 
 to Charbonnel and Walker's for a cup of chocolate 
 before going home. Yague ideas of delirium tremens 
 were possibly flying through fair Lucy's mind when 
 she asked Yraille thoughtfully the nature of his illness 
 
ENGAGEMENTS. 29 
 
 in India : had he had a sunstroke ever, she wanted to 
 know ? 
 
 " A sunstroke ! no ; whatever made you think of 
 India and sunstrokes just now? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing particular ; they came into my head, 
 that's all." 
 
 She told her mother afterwards of the strange way 
 in which Vraille had talked in the gallery, and 
 wondered whether he had a tile loose, or a B in his 
 honnet, or some such unpleasantness ; she hoped not, 
 for her own sake. Her mother only laughed and said 
 that, if Lucy were going to suspect every one who said 
 things she could not understand of madness, she 
 might as well take it for granted at once that the 
 world was a large lunatic asylum. 
 
 As a memento of their conversation Vraille bought 
 her one or two engravings which only cost him four or 
 five guineas, and then they drove hack to Bond Street 
 for. the chocolate, stopping at his club on the way 
 that he might cash a cheque. 
 
 " You seem very fond of pictures, Jim," she said, 
 as she sat alternately sipping and stirring her choco- 
 late ; " do you paint yourself ? " 
 
 He laughed. " A little," he said ; " like everything 
 else I do — a little. I amuse myself by drawing some- 
 times ; I always had a taste that way." 
 
 " You don't caricature, I hope." 
 
 " No ; I can't, or else perhaps I might." 
 
 Lucy was glad. She hated caricaturists, she said, 
 and those kind of people who made fun of one ; but she 
 would like him to draw a picture of herself, or paint 
 one, which would be better still: "a nice one," she 
 
30 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 pleaded ; " do paint my picture, Jim, do. I'll sit as 
 still as still." 
 
 " I could not, Lucy ; I would^not try, for anything. 
 But I'll have your picture done for you by some one 
 who can do you justice, if you like. Come with me 
 to-morrow morning and we'll make an appointment." 
 
 Lucy was delighted. " You dear old Jim," she 
 exclaimed ; " yes, I'll come with you to-morrow, 
 certainly. Oh, that's better than all the pictures in 
 the National Gallery, isn't it ? " 
 
 And so it was arranged, and they drove home 
 together in high spirits, Lucy with the " lovely box of 
 bonbons " which Jim had given her on her lap and one 
 hand clasped in his. 
 
 It was a long way to Cabstand Square, and by the 
 time Vraille had seen Lucy home, driven back to his 
 club, changed into evening clothes and returned, it 
 was past the usual Flight dinner hour and his hostess 
 was rather cross. But, as the little lady in the course 
 of the afternoon had remembered a serious complication 
 which she had quite overlooked at lunch, she speedily 
 regained her good humour in discussing it with Vraille. 
 She talked well, and. thoroughly enjoyed hearing her- 
 self talk ; and a man who listened attentively, as if 
 he understood and appreciated what she said, and 
 who, moreover, every now and again put in intelligent 
 remarks of his own, was a godsend to her ; she delighted 
 in a sensible discussion, as she called it, with her 
 future son-in-law. 
 
 But she was not the woman to overlook her daughter's 
 interests ; she was a thoughtful mother and a discreet 
 chaperon, and, once back in the drawing-room, she 
 
ENOA GEMENTS. 3 1 
 
 settled herself in her easy-chair with a ' Blackwood ' 
 on one knee and a ' Nineteenth Century ' on the other, 
 and silently compared their opposing views. Lucy, 
 who was famed for her sweet contralto, sang song after 
 song to her lover as he selected them, was languishing 
 and lovahle, and seen at her very best, Vraille thought, 
 as he turned over the leaves of her music and drank 
 in every note. Mrs. Flight, meanwhile, turned over 
 the leaves of her magazines, and, lulled by the soft 
 music, gradually lost sense of her surroundings and 
 fell asleep. 
 
 Then the pair behaved themselves as young people 
 in such circumstances usually do behave, and presently, 
 after sundry love passages of a very tender and strictly 
 confidential nature, began by slow and sweet degrees 
 to descend from heaven to earth, and in murmuring 
 voices to discuss their future prospects. They needed 
 discussing, for Vraille said that his recent court- 
 martial had upset all his plans. 
 
 " I hate the idea of serving under that man again," 
 he whispered, a thrill in his tone giving the whisper 
 a harsh quivering sound ; " it will be impossible to 
 get on with him. I despise him, and he knows it." 
 
 " But surely, Jim," she murmured back, " there are 
 other places to serve in beside India ? Is it necessary to 
 go to India ? I do so dread the idea," and she shuddered. 
 
 He comforted her, and then answered : " It all 
 depends upon what exchanges may be open. I am 
 going to see a man called Skrim, an agent, about an 
 exchange to-morrow morning." 
 
 " You won't forget about taking me to the photo- 
 grapher's about my picture ? " 
 
32 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 " No, no, I'll not ; forget. I shall have lots of time 
 to see Skrim first." 
 
 " I'll meet you at the shop door." 
 
 " Yes ; and then I can tell you what I've done." 
 
 "And be sure, Jim, you get a nice little English 
 station." 
 
 " I'll do the very best I can for your sweet sake ; 
 and I'll promise to decide nothing without first telling 
 
 you." 
 
 " It seems a dreadful pity that you should have to 
 move at all, when you were so comfortable where you 
 are," said Lucy despondently ; she had found Vraille's 
 present station a very attractive place on more than 
 one occasion, and had quite looked forward to settling 
 down in it altogether. 
 
 Her words opened the old sore and it bled afresh. 
 " Oh, the infinity of mischief done by folly ! " he 
 exclaimed in a gust of passion, throwing himself back 
 in his seat. " Fools do more harm in the world than 
 knaves, Lucy, I verily believe. But for the work of a 
 fool we might have married and settled down where 
 I am without a thought of India. I do not like taking 
 you to the scene of my arrest and trial. Let us start 
 afresh — altogether afresh ; and let me wipe out the 
 disgrace of it all by my own action, my endeavour, by 
 hard work, and so make for myself a future that will 
 do me credit. I will — I will some day ; and you shall 
 help me." 
 
 He explained to her how ambition had sprung out of 
 his sense of injury ; how a new purpose had been 
 grafted into his life ; how henceforth he intended to 
 live with the one great object in view of raising him- 
 
ENGAGEMENTS. 33 
 
 self high above the heads of such men as Colonel Dare, 
 and refuting in a practical way the charges that had 
 been falsely brought against him. But with all his 
 fire and enthusiasm he failed to kindle in Lucy's 
 eyes the same glow of animation that had shone 
 there the day before, when he told her that she, Lucy 
 Flight, had been the unconscious instrument that had 
 wrought such changes in his mode of life. This other 
 incitement to reform was not half so interesting as the 
 first ; in it she took no part ; it reflected no credit 
 upon herself, and that was what she liked to hear about. 
 
 " I have told no one but you of my determination," 
 he concluded ; " no one but you would take the trouble 
 to try and understand it. From you I have no 
 secrets; and you — you will understand, I know." 
 
 Yes, Lucy understood, of course, but at the same 
 time she could not see why all these things could not 
 be effected without going to India. Why not stay 
 comfortably at home and do them? That was what 
 she cou : d not understand. 
 
 This was natural, and Vraille, only too happy to 
 enlarge upon the subject, explained : India was the 
 country for a soldier who wished to get on ; he had done 
 a good deal of service in India, and he was known 
 there ; he would pass an examination in Hindustani 
 and qualify for an interpretership ; chances and 
 opportunities were occurring every day in India; it 
 was the land of enterprise. But, since she wished it, he 
 would willingly stay at home — it did not matter much. 
 
 Mrs. Flight here suddenly woke up and declared she 
 had heard every word he had been saying. '• India ! 
 enterprise ! " she exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in her 
 
 "VOL. I. D 
 
34 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 chair ; " it means war ; I feel certain of it. It is the 
 land of wars — the land of swords and soldiers. It 
 always must be so : '42 and Brydon are coming all 
 over again, as sure as Gladstone — but that is not 
 exactly what we were talking about, is it ? " she broke 
 off rather feebly. 
 
 Vraille had not told Lucy half of what he wished 
 to say- — much was on his mind to pour forth to her, 
 and he looked upon Mrs. Flight's awakening as un- 
 fortunately premature. Her remarks, too, were in- 
 opportune ; he had carefully avoided mentioning the 
 possibilities of w ar to Lucy for fear of frightening her 
 needlessly. However, it was past eleven, and there 
 was no help for it but to go. 
 
 He walked in the direction of his Club with the 
 depressing feeling that his heart was overloaded ; that 
 in the act of disburdening it he had been interrupted, 
 so that it was still full to overflowing. It was not 
 the first time he had experienced the feeling after a 
 day spent in the society of his inamorata ; but in this 
 instance, he told himself, the fault lay solely with her 
 mother. 
 
 At the club he met Scatter, young Careless, and one 
 or two others, who asked him to join them in a mid- 
 night grill, Harold Scatter adding the suggestion that 
 they should all drink health to Benedicts and confusion 
 to old Dare. 
 
 Eeadily enough Vraille accepted the invitation, and 
 in a few minutes Mas transformed from the moody 
 sentimental lover into the gay and careless knockabout 
 whom people were so ready to call dissipated. He 
 could not help it ; it was his nature to be happy ; 
 
ENGA G EMENTS. 35 
 
 society and genial companionship were meat and drink 
 to him ; he was the jolliest of the party, and all his 
 troubles and anxieties were drowned and smothered 
 in stout and devilled kidneys. About 2 a.m. he 
 sauntered home to his lodging. The empty streets, the 
 cold night air, and finally his dreary bedroom, struck 
 his hilarity with a succession of chills, and down, 
 down, down sank his spirits, until, by the time he was 
 between the sheets, doubts and fears, misgivings and 
 self-accusations, helped him to hear the clocks strike 
 three and four before he feel asleep. 
 
 Mr. Skrim was a round little shiny-faced old gentle- 
 man, whose figure and general appearance suggested 
 the idea of a rosy-cheeked apple ; and yet he was the 
 means of shaping the ends of many a rough-hewn 
 destiny, and a fairly sharp instrument for the purpose. 
 A genial, smiling factor in the futures of many of his 
 fellow men — a bland and unctuous personification of 
 fate, was Mr. Skrim. He offered Vraille a seat in a 
 low confidential voice. 
 
 xit first it seemed that there would be no difficulty in 
 arranging matters to the applicant's entire satisfaction ; 
 numbers of gentlemen would give anything to step into 
 Captain Vraille's shoes, and were only waiting for 
 such a chance to snap it up at once. But some of 
 them, it turned out on inquiry, were stationed in the 
 Bermudas or the Mauritius, others were expecting to 
 sail to Hong-Kong or Singapore at a moment's notice, 
 while others again were uncertain whether their next 
 move would be to Aden or Ceylon. No officers were 
 desirous of leaving the United Kingdom, except one, 
 
 d 2 
 
36 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 who had intimated a willingness to go anywhere so long 
 as he got two thousand pounds for going there. 
 
 " Now, if you would take a nice Indian station," said 
 Mr. Skrim, in his soft, purring voice, " we could fit 
 you out at once ; give you your choice, in fact, of three 
 or four charming places." 
 
 " I don't want India," said Yraille, hoarsely, trying 
 to look as if he meant what he said. 
 
 "There's Ghoojeram, E'ansidnugger, Jujabpoor," said 
 Mr. Skrim, running his finger down a list before him 
 and paying no heed to Yraille's objections. " You 
 see," he continued persuasively, leaning back in his 
 chair and tossing his spectacles up on to his forehead, 
 " exchanges are so easily arranged for you artillery 
 officers ; you have only to say the word and you can go 
 to any part of the world you like." 
 
 " It doesn't seem so," said Yraille, ruefully. 
 
 " And I should think," continued Mr. Skrim, hitching 
 his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, " that 
 an officer would go almost anywhere sooner than serve 
 under Colonel Dare." 
 
 "Come, that's no business of yours," said Yraille, hotly. 
 
 " No, no," returned Mr. Skrim in, no way put out ; 
 "no business of mine, of course; but I know, J know 
 Captain Yraille, and I must say I pity your successor. 
 By the way, have you ever met Major Bunce ? 
 Charming man ! you would like him immensely — 
 immensely ; his captain is at home on sick leave, 
 looking out for an exchange. That's the Ghoojeram 
 battery — the pleasantest station in India." 
 
 " I tell you I don't want to go to India. I want to 
 stay at home." 
 
ENGAGEMENTS. 37 
 
 " Then," said Mr. Skrim, changing his tactics, " you 
 must come to me again in three months' time. There 
 will he any amount of opportunities then." 
 
 " You think there will he war ? " 
 
 " In three months," Mr. Skrim replied, careful as 
 usual not to commit himself, " men will he flocking 
 to India and paying through the nose to get there ; as 
 it is, no money is passing for exchanges hetween India 
 and good home stations." 
 
 " Ah ! " sighed Vraille ; Mr. Skrim's insinuations were 
 having their effect. 
 
 " Don't decide immediately, Captain Vraille, leave the 
 matter in my hands. I will make every inquiry and 
 let you know the result. Kindly leave me your address. 
 Doubtless I shall be able to get you exactly what 
 you want. Should you change your mind about India, 
 of course you will let me know — by telegram would be 
 best. Good morning ; " and Mr. Skrim bowed his 
 client out of one door, tinging his bell to let his clerk 
 know that the other was at the next applicant's 
 disposal. 
 
 Vraille's first feeling as he stepped into the street 
 was one of keen and bitter disappointment ; he would 
 have jumped at Mr. Skrim's offer, and then and there 
 accepted the exchange to Ghoojeram, had there been 
 no one's wishes but his own to consult in the matter ; 
 but Lucy's abhorrence of India deterred him. Sooner 
 than thwart the first wish of any importance she had 
 expressed since he had become engaged to her, he 
 would go back to Colonel Dare. 
 
 Thus thinking, he hurried along to keep his appoint- 
 ment with her at the photographer's. He was five or 
 
38 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 six minutes late, but lie was before her, and glad to 
 find lie bad not kept ber waiting. He paced tbe pave- 
 ment up and down, thinking, and struggling to put 
 Gboojeram out of bis thoughts. 
 
 At last Lucy came, radiant and smiling as the 
 morning. In a moment his sombre thoughts were dis- 
 sipated. The sight of her bewitching loveliness sent 
 a glow of gladness through his heart, and illumined his 
 face as he hurried to meet her with pride and pleasure. 
 
 She was sorry to have kept him waiting, but the 
 morning had slipped away without her noticing the 
 time. She was full of enthusiasm about the proposed 
 photograph, and without more ado hurried into the 
 shop. Should it be a panel or a cabinet ? Which 
 would look best painted on china ? Was there a larger 
 size ? Should she be taken in walking or evening 
 costume ? She favoured evening. She did not inquire 
 so particularly as to Yraille's wishes as his opinions. 
 An appointment for the following day was at last 
 finally arranged, and all minor details settled, when 
 Vraille took her to the Grand Hotel for lunch. Miss 
 Lucy was hungry, and enjoyed the good things set 
 before her like a healthy, sensible woman ; but Yraille 
 talked so eagerly that he ate but little. He recapitu- 
 lated all the minutia? of his morning's interview, and 
 again and again expressed his regrets for having been 
 unable to settle matters, as he had hoped to do, to her 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " I am so sorry, Lucy," he said, before bidding her 
 good-bye, " I had nothing definite to tell you, that your 
 anxiety might be at an end. It is not fair to you, I 
 know ; but indeed I cannot help myself." 
 
ENGAGEMENTS. 39 
 
 She was not down-hearted, however, and encouraged 
 him with assurances that something would he sure to 
 turnup. 
 
 " We shan't go to India, I feel certain," she said, 
 giving him her hand out of the cab window ; " and you 
 won't forget the photographer to-morrow. You will 
 come for me in plenty of time, won't you ? " 
 
40 JAMES VHAILLE. 
 
 CHAPTEB III. 
 
 UNCLE BEN. 
 
 The younger Pitt took after his father ; but, for the 
 most part, talent, character, propensities and such- 
 like things skip a generation, like the gout. Parsons' 
 sons often turn out wicked, and a pedagogue's children 
 generally hate books. James Yraille's father was, or 
 rather had been when he was alive, a doctor of divinity 
 and a head schoolmaster, so that by the law of averages 
 James Vraille was heavily and doubly handicapped 
 from the day that he first started on the race of life. 
 He made a bad start. At school he was always in 
 trouble, and did very little work — no more than he 
 could possibly help, in fact. He brought home plenty 
 of silver challenge-cups, presentation cricket bats, and 
 " first fifteen " football jerseys, but his prizes were con- 
 spicuous for their absence, and his reports for them 
 " very indifferents." 
 
 He did not always enjoy his holidays, and never 
 unless his Uncle Ben was staying at Orleigh with his 
 brother the Doctor, which, luckily for Master Jim, very 
 often happened to be the case ; for Uncle Ben naturally 
 chose holiday-time for his visits, and was pretty regular 
 at midsummer, — at Christmas a certainty. Between 
 uncle and nephew existed an undefined affinity. 
 They were the best of friends, and many a time had 
 Uncle Ben acted as peacemaker between the boy and 
 
UNCLE BEN. 41 
 
 his father. While it remained an understood thing in 
 the family that Jim would some day be taken into 
 partnership by the old lawyer, the boy continued to be 
 as idle as ever ; but when the subject of the army as a 
 profession had been broached by the young scamp him- 
 self, indignantly discussed, and finally settled, he 
 suddenly began to work. The Doctor was disgusted at 
 his son's decision, but Uncle Ben quoted the family 
 motto, Nosee teipsum, and declared that the lad should 
 be allowed to follow his own inclinations. 
 
 Children remember little things, and hide them in 
 their hearts. Sometimes the impression made by some 
 trivial occurrence in childhood is retained through life. 
 James Vraille never forgot the first (and only) prize he 
 gained at school. "With the prospect of a commission 
 as an incentive, he began to read, mark, learn, and pay 
 attention. It was uphill work ; he had a lot of lost 
 ground to cover before he could start fair. But he got 
 on and got up. For three terms in succession he was 
 beaten by the same boy. At last he won the class 
 prize over that boy's head, and carried it wrapped in 
 tissue paper all the way from the school-house door to 
 his own home under his arm rather thau trust it to the 
 vicissitudes of his portmanteau in the luggage-van. 
 He took it into his father's study and gave it into his 
 father's hand. r ihe Doctor, himself a schoolmaster 
 with a high reputation as a classic, praised him and 
 patted him on the shoulder, and, after turning over the 
 leaves of the volume carelessly, placed it on a side table, 
 remarking in a ruminating tone that after much ex- 
 perience he had come to the conclusion that prizes 
 were, after all, a poor test of a boy's ability, and that 
 
42 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 competition was not a sound thing in principle. He was 
 glad, however, to see that his son was doing well in 
 mathematics ; it was not a study he knew much about ; 
 but of course he was glad. 
 
 Every detail of that interview stood out clear in 
 Vraille's memory whenever he thought of his school 
 days. He could see the pained expression of the boy's 
 face as he left the room. He could see him pitch the 
 book into a drawer in his little bedroom, where it lay, 
 wrapped in its tissue paper, untouched from that day 
 forward until it was sold in a job lot at the auction 
 that had succeeded his father's death. 
 
 He failed to get into the army at his first attempt ; 
 he was not a clever man like his father, who wrote 
 treatises on JuveDal and Thucydides, and books of all 
 sorts about ancient old gentlemen for the edification of 
 modern young ones. Perhaps he would have done 
 better had he not tried again, but then and there 
 accepted his uncle's renewed offer and become a lawyer. 
 His father took no interest in a career of which he 
 knew nothing ; the little ambitions, difficulties, and 
 annoyances of a soldier's life were paltry things to 
 him compared to the importance of a Greek root or 
 the significance of a Latin derivation. He cared for no 
 soldiers but Csesar and Hannibal and Xenophon; he 
 did not understand the matter of allowances, and kept 
 his son short of money and well in hand. But de 
 mortals 
 
 He died; his wife soon followed him; his second 
 son had died in childhood, and his daughters were all 
 married. Jim came into his money, and, like a duckling 
 taking to water in spite of the precepts and example of 
 
UNCLE BEN 43 
 
 ita foster-mother, rushed headlong into pleasures ; and 
 he thoroughly enjoyed himself. He enjoyed himself 
 for a good long time longer than most men, for he had 
 arrears to make up. However, he had at last found 
 some one beside Uncle Ben to take an interest in what 
 he did ; and after ascending the well-known stairs two 
 at a time, he knocked at that lawyer's office door with 
 a knock a great deal heavier than his heart. 
 
 " Come in ! " roared a lusty voice from the inside ; 
 and Vraille obeyed. 
 
 " Hallo, Jim, my boy ! I might have guessed it was 
 you by the infernal row you made," said Uncle Ben ; 
 " you cost me a new panel every time you come here 
 — you and your beastly artillery. But come in now 
 you are here, and shut what's left of the door ; I'm not 
 so fond of draughts as I was. Sit down over there out 
 of the way, and I'll attend to you in one minute. Here, 
 here's a cigar ; it'll keep you quiet." 
 
 Vraille did as he was told, and sat tapping the toe 
 of his patent leather boot with his stick and puffing 
 his cigar, which was a good one, while Uncle Ben went 
 on with his writing. 
 
 Seated at his desk, he looked like a man whose words 
 and ways and thoughts were all perfectly legal and 
 nothing else — an unbending, uncompromising, matter- 
 of-fact, six-and-eightpenny parchment sort of man. 
 But Jim knew better. He remembered him in the old 
 days at Orleigh Grammar-school, looking on at football 
 or cricket, and taking much interest in boys and boys' 
 ways. " The false quantity," the Orleigh boys called 
 him, because of his little person and large voice, and 
 he enjoyed the joke as much as they did. But wher- 
 
44 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 ever lie was, or whatever he did, he was healthy and 
 happy, brisk and business-like, sonorous and shrewd— 
 wonderfully shrewd, " the family " thought — difficult 
 to defeat in argument, difficult to gainsay, easy to get 
 on with, but not always easy to understand. He had 
 no breadth to make up for want of height, except 
 from ear to ear. His bald head seemed to be all fore- 
 head ; but his little legal whiskers, deep-set twinkling 
 eyes and beetling eye-brows made ample amends for 
 the dignity that another cubit of stature might have 
 added to his appearance. The family, his clients, and 
 his nephew respected him. 
 
 "Well, Jim," he said presently, swinging himself 
 round in his swivel chair, and facing his nephew with 
 a face changed as much as an actor's after the falling 
 of the curtain, " you were right not to employ counsel 
 in your case, after all. JSosce teipsum, nosce teipsum ; 
 you are a real Yraille." 
 
 As eldest surviving member of the family, Mr. 
 Benjamin Yraille of Bedford Eow was rather proud of 
 the distinction of representing it in his person. The 
 Vrailles, he said, had " come over at the Conquest," 
 and their motto had been conferred by the great 
 William himself upon a hitherto unknown Norman 
 who had saved the Conqueror's life at Hastings. The 
 words bore a double Significance. The Vrailles had 
 " known themselves " from that time forth. " Know 
 thyself," Uncle Ben construed as meaning " know thy 
 own mind." He always knew his own mind, and ex- 
 pected other people to know theirs. 
 
 Jim said that it did not take counsel to see through 
 wanton injustice, and pulled hard at his cigar. 
 
UNCLE BEN 45 
 
 " Aye, but it isn't every man would have the pluck 
 to stand up alone against the quibbles of the law ; and 
 that same piece of injustice, by the looks of you, seems 
 to have pulled you down a bit, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Jim, shortly. 
 
 " But don't you go taking things more seriously 
 than they're worth. It's a way you have, I'm afraid. 
 Meet 'em ; and, if you can, defeat 'em ; but don't 
 worry about 'em afterwards. It's all over now, and 
 well over. You showed the stuff you were made of for 
 about the first time since I've known you, though I 
 always knew you had it in you. You knew your own 
 minr), my boy, and I was proud of you." 
 
 Vraille said something about common sense and un- 
 common nonsense, and explained at some length the 
 freedom of military law from quibbles ; and then they 
 began talking about prospects and futures, and altered 
 states and circumstances, and family affairs, until they 
 got at last to Mr. Skrim. 
 
 " Hang me," said Uncle Ben, emphatically, " if I can 
 see the sense of exchanging. It looks like pique — as 
 if you were ashamed to go back." 
 
 " My coming away was a relief to everybody," Jim 
 replied. 
 
 That was just it ; he knew that every one had felt 
 relieved when his cab had fairly passed the sentry at 
 the gate, and he felt that, consequently, every one 
 would be sorry to see his cab return. It did not 
 follow ; but he had only his own feelings to judge other 
 people's- by. 
 
 " No reason why you should stay away altogether — 
 run away like a whipped cur." 
 
4fj JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 It was a bard expression, and Yraille's face flushed. 
 
 " I'm not afraid of Dare," he said angrily, " however 
 much I may hate him." 
 
 " Don't hate, my boy ; it's never worth while." 
 
 " Well, despise him then." 
 
 " That'll do you no good, either. I don't like Colonel 
 Dare any better than you do ; but in your place I 
 should go back and meet him as if nothing had hap- 
 pened. That strikes me as the manly thing for you 
 to do." 
 
 It struck Jim — struck him as a " facer," he said ; he 
 had never looked at the matter in that light before ; 
 he had only thought that his position under Dare 
 would be intolerable both for himself and Lucy. 
 
 " Oh, sentiment be laid aside for a moment," 
 
 said the old gentleman. " If I thought an exchange 
 was the right thing, I'd give you a couple of thousand 
 for one to-morrow ; but I don't. You've been bucketing 
 about all over the place for Lord knows how long — not 
 that I ever thought the worse of you for your pranks — 
 and, now that you're upset all of a sudden, your judg- 
 ment is unsettled. You'll think as I do in a week's 
 time, if you don't let your affections get the upper hand 
 of you." 
 
 " I never knew I had any — until lately." 
 
 " I did ; and I knew they'd find you out some day. 
 Your father used to tell me sometimes about tender- 
 heeled Achilles ; I used to tell him about a tender- 
 hearted boy. But we could not always understand one 
 another, your father and I. Our educations were 
 different ; only I knew a bit more of the world than he 
 did, for all his Latin primers." 
 
UNCLE BEN 47 
 
 And then Uncle Ben went on to say other things 
 about a boat being all the better for ballast, and 
 running as much as possible on an even keel, for she 
 answered her helm truer so in rough weather ; and 
 about family mottoes, and knowing one's own mind, 
 until Jim stopped him with — 
 
 " Uncle Ben, I believe you are the best fellow in this 
 world — too good to make promises to " 
 
 " Don't want 'em," was interpolated. 
 
 " But it's easy enough for me to keep straight now ; 
 and, if you're better pleased with me in future, remem- 
 ber it's not my fault, but Lucy's." 
 
 " She isn't sharp, is she, Jim ? I hate sharp 
 women," said the little lawyer, screwing up his eyes. 
 
 His nephew explained. He explained with that 
 deliberate earnestness which comes of conviction. 
 
 James Vraille was no fool, whatever he was ; but 
 there comes a time to every man, sooner or later — 
 better for him if it comes sooner — and, generally 
 speaking, only once in his whole lifetime, when a little 
 naked deity with a pair of little wings and a quiver 
 slung over his shoulder flutters down upon him and 
 puts a pair of chubby hands over his eyes, so that he 
 sees crooked— if he sees at all — for a period of time 
 that is regulated by no known laws. Second-lieuten- 
 ants and secretaries of state, ploughboys and pleni- 
 potentiaries, paupers and princes, are all subject to the 
 affliction — affection, perhaps, is a better word — and, 
 like the measles, the sooner they get over it the better 
 for them, for it is apt to be more fatal in after-life. 
 
 " Well, well," he said, when his nephew had quite 
 finished, "I was never married — married myself, \ou 
 
48 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 see, and I know very little about women except liti- 
 gious ones. My opinions about matrimony are not 
 worth niuch, but my opiuion is that it will do you 
 good. A good woman is the making of a man — a bad 
 'un his ruin. Flight was a bit of a scamp, I'm afraid ; 
 but that's no reason why his daughter should not be 
 everything that's honest and straightforward. Pity 
 she hasn't a little money ; but, luckily, that won't 
 matter much to you, my boy, so long as she knows her 
 own mind." 
 
 Any one standing outside the door, and listening to 
 these two talking without being able to see them, 
 would have supposed that the "Jim" being spoken to 
 was a little fellow in knickerbockers, and would have 
 wondeied how it could possibly be that the "boy" and 
 matrimony Lad anything in common. But Jim, though 
 hs five-and- thirtieth birthday was an event of the past, 
 and no one could tell what had been the original colour 
 of his hair, was still a boy to Uncle Ben, and always 
 would be, if he lived to be a hundred and his uncle a 
 hundred and twenty-four. But they understood one 
 another, and chatted on and on, until the old gentle- 
 man supposed that they had better get to business. 
 At the sound of the word he underwent a sort of 
 Jekyll-Hyde transformation — was no longer Uncle 
 Ben but Lawyer Yraille. In ten minutes Jim knew 
 more about his own affairs than he bad known before 
 in all his life — perhaps because, for the first time, he 
 gave them his whole attention. Then they came to 
 the settlenieuts. Here they disagreed. Uncle Ben 
 said his ideas were founded on common sense and fair- 
 ness ; Vraille said the terms were scurvy ; Uncle Ben 
 
UNCLE BEN. 49 
 
 that he would draw up no other. Vraille supposed that 
 he could will his money — the rest of it — as he liked 
 afterwards ; Uncle Ben suggested that that was quite 
 an after-consideration. The matter was settled at last 
 — as Uncle Ben wished. 
 
 As Vraille was marrying Lucy for love — pure, 
 honest, downright love — he wanted to show her the 
 extent of his love by settling on her the one-half of his 
 worldly possessions ; hut, as his uncle had not been able 
 to see more than about an eighth of his argument, Jim 
 walked to an office in the City and insured his life. 
 That, and the absolute settlement of a small but suffi- 
 cient annuity as pin-money, he thought would do ; yes, 
 that would do — with a will in case of accidents. It 
 was late when he got back to his Club. 
 
 Now, there are some men whose affairs seem to be 
 arranged for them in the proper order ; others who 
 are obliged to spend a great deal of unnecessary time 
 in putting together the pieces of the puzzle of life, 
 because they are handed to them out of turn. Vraille 
 was one of these. No sooner had he settled on one 
 course of action than some unlooked-for circumstance 
 would often arise to upset his plans and unsettle 
 his mind, when, if it had only happened at the right 
 time, there would have been no difficulty. 
 
 He had pretty well decided that he would act on his 
 uncle's advice and go back to Colonel Dare, should 
 Lucy see no objection, when the telegraphic apparatus 
 in the hall of his Club began to click out tape and 
 intelligence. He arrived to find it in full click, but 
 too late to get anywhere near it. A knot of men were 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 standing round it, hemming it in on every side. But 
 presently a servant tore the tape into lengths and 
 pinned them up on a notice-board ; and then, over the 
 heads and shoulders of those in front of him, he read 
 with difficulty : " Complications .... frontier .... 
 possibility .... reinforcements .... England .... 
 ordered out . . . . " and whistled. Phew ! this made 
 all the difference. What would his uncle say now ? 
 Should he wire to Skrim ? No ; Ghoojeram might go 
 to the devil, or the devil to Ghoojeram, at any rate 
 until he had consulted with Lucy. 
 
 It was a warlike little tape, but, after the manner 
 of tapes, was cautious ; it was only a preparatory tape 
 and did not commit itself. But it had its effect upon 
 the Stock Exchange and the Skrim Agency and other 
 large offices, and Jim received a telegram next day 
 which (punctuated) read : " Kansidnugger, Jujabpore, 
 both gone. Will you take Ghoojeram ? Skrim." 
 
 It had been a hardish battle to make up his mind to 
 go back to Colonel Dare as if nothing had happened — 
 a great deal had happened that he resented with all 
 the animus of his nature — but he had definitely won 
 that battle. He had wished to spare Lucy the un- 
 pleasantness of going back to the scene of his arrest 
 and trial, and to start his married life fair and square 
 in a new place and with a new set. But he had come 
 to the conclusion that his wishes were things to be 
 avoided, and that his uncle's counsel was sound. He 
 owed Uncle Ben much — more than he could ever repay 
 — and he was only too anxious to please him, apart from 
 other considerations. After all, it did not matter where 
 he vvent, so long as Lucy was happy. She was to have 
 
UNCLE BEN 51 
 
 had the casting vote ; the position was not materially 
 altered, and the decision should remain with her still. 
 
 Mrs. Flight thought him uncommonly uninteresting 
 the nest time he dined there, and fell asleep sooner than 
 usual. Then, when he and Lucy were practically alone, 
 he told her all, omitting nothing but his own wishes. 
 There might be war ; there might not ; no one knew, 
 and no reliance could be placed in newspaper reports, 
 which were at present all " ifs " and " buts," " unlesses " 
 and " in cases." 
 
 Colonel Dare and Grhoojeram were the alternatives, 
 for Uncle Ben had said that to exchange elsewhere 
 would be an unmanly thing to do. Grhoojeram was" 
 many hundred miles from the possible scene of action ; 
 but still those in the country would naturally run a 
 better chance of employment than those ten thousand 
 miles away, and the recent news, had he known it at 
 the time, might have reversed Uncle Ben's opinion. 
 
 "What do you mean by employment ? " she asked. 
 
 He hesitated a moment, and then : " Well, seeing 
 active service in some shape or form." , 
 
 " And do you mean to say that you want to take 
 me to India to leave me all alone out there while you 
 are away fighting and perhaps getting killed ? " 
 
 Put like that, it did seem a selfish thing to 
 suggest, he said. But he was not suggesting it — 
 merely trying to decide the best thing to be done. Of 
 course she was ambitious ; of course she wanted him 
 to get on in his profession ; and here was a chance, 
 an off chance certainly, but still a chance that might 
 never occur again. " When a woman like you," he 
 declared, meaning every word he said, " tells a man 
 
 e 2 
 
52 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 she will follow hirn to the world's end, and that she is 
 ready to undergo, for his sake, the little disagreeables 
 that every soldier's wife must expect, she is in 
 earnest. I know that. I know what you would do for 
 me. But I hope never to see you suffer discomfort — 
 there need never be occasion, luckily. If the worst 
 were to come to the worst, my going away for a month 
 or two would only mean a trip to the Hills, where I 
 know a number of nice people who would be kind to 
 you, and that at some time a long way hence most 
 probably." 
 
 She wanted to interrupt him, but he would not let 
 her speak until she had heard both sides of the question ; 
 but, after expatiating on his conversation with his uncle, 
 he pulled Mr. Skrim's telegram from his pocket and 
 handed it to her. 
 
 " Oh, but I really think your uncle is right," she said 
 when she had read it ; " he thinks it the manly thing 
 to do to go back and meet Colonel Dare as if nothing 
 had happened" — she used Uncle Ben's very words — 
 " and I think so too. I don't mind meeting him, Jim, 
 really I don't — not a bit. I don't mind that stupid 
 court-martial; it doesn't matter in the least; besides, 
 you should certainly keep good friends with your 
 uncle." 
 
 And so it was decided. He thanked her for her 
 loving interest, said she was a sound, sensible woman, 
 called her a number of very pretty names, and tore 
 himself away. 
 
 But somehow he did not wish to put in writing the 
 evidence of his refusal to go to India, so he answered 
 Mr. Skrim's telegram in person. The agent received 
 
UNCLE BEN. 53 
 
 him coldly. " Oh, indeed," was all he said when Vraille 
 told him he had decided not to exchange at all. 
 
 " I am sorry to have troubled you," said Vraille, who 
 was always polite when he was not thinking of some- 
 thing else ; " and no doubt some one will take Ghoo- 
 jeram." 
 
 " I effected an exchange yesterday," said Mr. Skrim, 
 taking a penknife from his pocket and proceeding to 
 pare his nails ; " you did not ask for the refusal of it, 
 and left my telegram unanswered." 
 
 " Gone already ? " exclaimed Jim, with something 
 like a pang of regret in his heart. 
 
 " Snapped up," said Mr. Skrim tersely. 
 It did not matter. He had made up his mind before- 
 hand ; and, having made up hi3 mind, tried to believe 
 himself thoroughly happy. He met Lucy at the photo- 
 grapher's, and either the prospect of having her picture 
 taken, or the news of the fall of Ghoojeram, or both, 
 made her look more radiant than ever. He was 
 enchanted. 
 
 Happy is the man with a mind made up ! and, if 
 only peace had been probable instead of war, Vraille 
 would have been the happiest man loitering about 
 London. 
 
 However, he devoted himself to his idol, tried to for- 
 get all rumours of war and disquieting telegrams, and so 
 got through the time. The marriage settlements had 
 been signed ; the banns proclaimed for the second time ; 
 Vraille had secured the services of a bachelor friend, 
 Lucy of three spinster ladies not quite so handsome 
 as herself. The day itself had been finally fixed ; 
 everything had been arranged, except the details of 
 
54 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 the honeymoon. Vraille was in favour of some quiet 
 little spot in Devonshire, but gave way to Lucy's 
 preference for Paris — there were beautiful things to 
 he seen and bought in Paris, she said. Paris was 
 decided on. 
 
 It only wanted a week to the day, and he was told 
 to keep away from Cabstand Square as Lucy was very 
 busy with her trousseau. He had very few prepara- 
 tions of his own to make — presents to buy and com- 
 missions to execute for Lucy, and a stock of books on 
 military subjects (for he had made up his mind to read 
 hard in the winter evenings)' to lay in. Spinning these 
 occupations out as much as possible, they only helped 
 to occupy two days ; and he was beginning to wonder 
 if the intervening five would ever pass, when he received 
 a letter from his major which made him jump as if he 
 had been shot before he had read a dozen words. 
 
 " We are ordered to hold ourselves in readiness for 
 foreign service," the words ran, "and all leave is 
 cancelled. You must, I am afraid, come back, unless 
 you can arrange at the War Office for a fortnight or 
 so. Under the circumstances they'll probably give 
 you that much grace. Your orders follow . . . ." 
 
 This was cutting the Gordian knot with a vengeance ! 
 How would Uncle Ben take it ? What would Lucy 
 say ? There was no need to frighten the girl, so he 
 just sent her a message saying he would look in in the 
 evening, and then hurried off to Bedford Row. He spent 
 an hour or two with his uncle, and the effect of the inter- 
 view was printed in rather large type upon his face 
 when it was over. He looked sad and serious as he left the 
 office, and, having secured a fortnight " on very urgent 
 
UNCLE BEN 55 
 
 private affairs," sat in an arm-chair in the cluh 
 smoking-room, thinking " how the deuce " he was to 
 break the news in the least disagreeable way to Lucy. 
 
 It was by no means an easy task. At first Lucy 
 thought he was joking, and would not listen seriously ; 
 but, when she realised that he was in earnest, she 
 flashed out with — 
 
 "It's too bad; it's too bad! You promised me 
 faithfully you would not go. You have broken your 
 promise. Why should I spend a week's honeymoon in 
 a pokey little place I never heard of? I can't, and, 
 what's more, I shan't. I've been made a fool of, and I 
 won't stand it." 
 
 He seemed to be dazed at first, and for some time 
 stood before her dumb, as if convicted of a crime, 
 without a word to say in his defence. Indeed, he felt 
 horribly guilty. She had every reason to be vexed; 
 and this was the time of all others to be kind and 
 considerate. He tried to be kind, and began to say some 
 soft, soothing things. But she did not want his kind- 
 ness ; he had treated her shamefully, and she turned 
 away, refusing to be comforted. Then he tried to 
 reason with her, remembering that it was essential 
 to be patient. 
 
 ' ■ But, my darling," he urged, " I have nothing to 
 do with my going. I no more expected all this yester- 
 day than you did yourself. I am ordered." 
 
 " Then you must get out of the order somehow, if 
 you want me to marry you. I'm not to be treated in 
 this way. It's a shame ! a shame ! I believe you 
 knew all along." 
 
 " Indeed, indeed, Lucy, I did not." 
 
56 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 " Well, exchange then ; you were anxious enough to 
 exchange until your uncle dissuaded you." 
 
 "I cannot now. I must go, even if — even if I go 
 alone." 
 
 "And that you certainly will, as far as I'm con- 
 cerned." 
 
 " You don't mean that seriously, Lucy ? " 
 
 " I do, I do ; " and she began to cry. It was morti- 
 fying in the extreme. The sheen of her wedding-dress 
 was dulled ; her beautiful trousseau was useless, and 
 all her pretty new frocks ; her bridesmaids would no 
 longer envy her ; the nice little wedding was robbed of 
 all its fascination ; the trip to Paris and the pleasant 
 garrison life at home were no more. Oh, it was a 
 shame ! It was ridiculous and absurd of Jim to say 
 that they could honeymoon all their lives. Those 
 were not her ideas ; and if she could not be married 
 properly, she would not be married at all, which last 
 sentiment she expressed aloud. 
 
 " Is that your last word, Lucy ? " he asked, with no 
 kindness in his voice now, nor yet impatience, but only 
 sadness. 
 
 Yes, it was her last word, and he moved toward her, 
 saying he would come and see her before he started. 
 
 " When I come home again " but the thought was 
 
 too much for him, and, flinging his arms round her, he 
 exclaimed, " No, no, you don't mean it, sweetheart ; 
 you can't mean it. I cannot — cannot help myself. 
 You are punishing me unjustly. Tell me at least that 
 you are sorry for me." 
 
 She was not mollified, and wrenched herself free. 
 She was too engrossed with her own great disaj)point- 
 
UNCLE BEN. 57 
 
 ment and sense of injury, to be affected by either 
 argument or entreaty — much less to be subdued by 
 useless demonstrations of affection, which only tended 
 to increase her anger. 
 
 It was an unequal battle. He was suffering heavily, 
 and was on the point of being not only vanquished 
 but utterly routed, when an ally arrived on the field in 
 the nick of time and saved the catastrophe. 
 
 Mrs. Flight had often done her daughter good 
 service in her day, and now, with the instinct of an 
 old soldier and the quick intelligence of a military 
 genius, she took in the whole situation at a glance, 
 and saw pretty well what was wanted. A word or two 
 put her in possession of the facts, and a question or two 
 decided her how to act. Vraille was hopelessly worsted 
 and useless ; that was evident, so she ordered a retreat. 
 f " The news has upset her, poor girl," she said to 
 / him, " and she has not been herself all day. Better 
 leave her to me, Jim, now, and by to-morrow she will 
 have quite got over the shock. She is inclined to be 
 a little hysterical," she whispered, leading him toward 
 the door ; " but it's only the over-excitement of the 
 wedding — all girls are the same ; " and she pushed him 
 gently from the room. 
 
 But he felt that it was not a case of " to-morrow ; " 
 he had received his conge. It was all up. Like every- 
 thing else in life that he had set his heart on, he had 
 failed within an inch of success, or succeeded only to 
 find out that he had better have failed. There was 
 nothing to be done but to pack up and leave London 
 the next day. What should he say to people— and to 
 Uncle Ben ? 
 
58 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 But Mrs. Flight, meanwhile, was fighting his battles 
 for him, and she meant to win. She no sooner heard 
 the front door banged behind him than she turned 
 to the attack. 
 
 " You stupid, stupid, selfish girl," she said ; " what 
 have you been saying to make him look like that? 
 How much have you got to retract to-morrow ? " 
 
 Lucy was sitting before her on the sofa, not crying, 
 but sulkily picking the hem of her handkerchief. 
 
 " I said T would not marry him, and I won't," she 
 replied, but in a tone not nearly so decided as that she 
 had used to Vraille. 
 
 " Do you know what he has settled on you ? " asked 
 her mother. " Do you remember the things he has 
 given you ? Are you aware that the trousseau you 
 think so much about is to be paid for by him ? Have 
 you no conscience, no pride, no self-respect ? In return 
 for all he has done for you, you abuse him for things 
 he cannot help ; he is too good for you — much too 
 good. Lucy, he is a fine fellow. I will do nothing to 
 persuade him to marry you — nothing ; but write and 
 tell him th.^t you are heartily ashamed of yourself, you 
 shall, and this very evening, too. If he likes to forgive 
 you, well and good ; but don't expect any assistance 
 from me. I mean to act perfectly honestly by him, 
 for I like him." 
 
 Mrs. Flight knew her daughter, and rightly calcu- 
 lated on the influence of her own strength of will. 
 
 Having broken down the enemy's defence with this 
 sudden rush, she pursued her advantage, and soon put 
 all opposition at an end. She declared that Lucy's 
 repugnance to India was childish and absurd. India 
 
UNCLE BEN. 59 
 
 was a matter of course for all soldiers, and sooner or 
 later India was bound to come ; it had come sooner, 
 that was all. She would not allow that her daughter 
 had any excuse for her treatment of Jim, for which 
 she must, and should, apologise, whatever else hap- 
 pened. 
 
 Mrs. Flight had right on her side, and a good cause 
 is a powerful weapon ; in the end she won a signal 
 victory, and Lucy sat down to write her letter. 
 
 Yraille could only read the written words of that 
 letter when it reached him ; he could not read the 
 thoughts behind them. He could only see the terms 
 of endearment and protestations of contrition, which 
 were all the sweeter for being somewhat ungrammati- 
 cally expressed. He kissed the letter and followed in 
 person one of his own that he had written and sent the 
 night before. 
 
 Now had peace and beatitude not been thus restored ; 
 had Yraille been hard-hearted enough to refuse forgive- 
 ness for the unkind things that had been said ; had Lucy 
 adhered to her original determination, as most women 
 — especially beautiful ones — usually do, then James 
 Yraille would have gone out to Iudia, moped for a 
 while, married some one else, and his story would have 
 been entirely altered from that moment. But peace 
 and beatitude did reign; Yraille was not a bit more 
 resentful than other men madly in love with a beautiful 
 woman ; and Lucy was weaker, let us say, than the 
 generality of her sex. 
 
 And so there was a gay wedding — a " pretty " one, 
 the three bridesmaids called it — after all. Mrs. Flight 
 kissed the last of her series of sons-in-law ; Uncle Ben, 
 
60 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 resplendent in a favour as large as his voice, presented 
 his new niece, as he called her, with a necklace that 
 made her eyes glisten, and his " boy " with a cheque 
 that made his open with surprise. 
 
 All was as it should be, and Lucy Flight left her 
 name behind her in the church in Cabstand Square for 
 ever, and drove away with happy Jim — Mrs. Vraille. 
 
( 61 ) 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 YOUNG FOLKS AT HOME. 
 
 It was April — no showery, sunshiny, first-one-thing- 
 and-then-another sort of April, such as Lucy had always 
 looked upon as the proper prelude to Easter and a new 
 gown, but a blazing, scorching, piping April about which 
 there was no uncertainty : it meant the hot weather, 
 and meant it in earnest. 
 
 The thermometer was rising higher and higher every 
 day. The heat was intense. But Jim said that it was 
 nothing to what they might expect later on. Nothing ? 
 Why it was insufferable ; she could scarcely breathe. 
 The punkah was not working half enough ; that 
 wretched coolie always left off pulling directly she fell 
 asleep. Perhaps he thought she was asleep still ; she 
 would soon let him know that she was wide awake — 
 and Mrs. Yraille summoned her ayah, who deferentially 
 received an angry message and softly departed to 
 deliver it. For five or ten minutes the punkah flapped 
 furiously, and then subsided into its former noiseless and 
 graceful swing. It was Lucy's first experience of hot 
 weather in the plains, and she was unaccustomed to the 
 ways of punkahs. 
 
 It was horribly hot ; but, after all, India was not 
 half such a disagreeable place as she had imagined it 
 would be when she left England. Jim had been lucky 
 
62 JAMES VltAILLE. 
 
 enough to be sent to a large central station where there 
 was plenty going on — a delightful place, with a kursaal, 
 a gymkhana, tennis, cricket and polo grounds, bands, 
 gardens, a club, a theatre, a beautiful ball-room, a 
 Government House, and some of the most charming 
 men in the shape of A.D.C.s that she" had ever met. 
 More than all, she herself was very popular, and had 
 formed quite a little circle of her own that encompassed 
 her about whenever she showed her face in public. 
 She had made a sensation directly she arrived; the 
 women had one and all admired her clothes, by inference 
 if not openly, and had hardly yet left off asking her 
 questions about the latest London fashions. As for 
 the men, she held a little court almost every day ; they 
 flocked round her carriage in the Mall, and vied with 
 one another in their attentions ; they would leave any 
 one to come to her, do anything to please her, give 
 anything to dance with her : she reigned supreme. A 
 garrison at home was no doubt delightful, but the 
 delights of a garrison at home were paltry compared 
 to those of an important Indian cantonment. She had 
 always been admired, even in London, where there 
 were so many beautiful faces and figures to contend 
 against ; but here she was a queen, an undisputed queen. 
 Every one was so free and easy ; there was no stupid stiff- 
 ness about Indian society, and the easy mode of life, so 
 different to what she had expected it would be, had been 
 a source of pleasurable excitement. The novelty of 
 these things was beginning to wear off certainly, but 
 still she had spent a thoroughly enjoyable time. 
 
 Of course she had ! India is kind to young married 
 women, and by its special attentions to them does its 
 
YOUNG FOLKS AT HOME. 63 
 
 utmost to make amends for the disadvantages of 
 matrimony in such a climate. White women are at a 
 premium, and are valued ; but matrimony is a serious 
 matter with a steadily declining rate of exchange. 
 With the rupee at one-and-sixpeoce, and a thousand 
 eyes watching one's every movement, it is hardly safe 
 to dance too often with a girl until she is some one 
 else's girl. Then it does not matter. The girl's 
 business in India is to marry. That done, she is free to 
 enjoy life to the utmost, and every man's duty to help 
 her to enjoy it. India is the country par excellence 
 for young married women. It was conquered for their 
 benefit ! Its spinsters are graciously allowed to skim 
 over the surface of its pleasures, but only its young 
 matrons are entitled to plunge into the vortex of its 
 delights. Mrs. Vraille's mind was not of that order 
 given to reasoning, but rather to taking conclusions for 
 granted. Being not only pretty but lovely, she enjoyed 
 the fascinations of social India, and, without questioning 
 the why or the wherefore, was only greatly gratified 
 that it was so. 
 
 She was the most lovely woman in Asia ! ! Mr. 
 Eook, that promising young civilian, had told her so ; 
 and Mr. Kook knew what he was talking about. He 
 had come out on board the same ship with them, and 
 how devoted he had been ! It was absurd of J im, who 
 knew nothing about him, to pretend he did not like 
 him. Mr. Eook was a pleasant and decidedly useful 
 neighbour. There could be no possible objection to 
 her riding with him occasionally. Jim was uxorious — 
 that was the word Mr. Kook had used — uxorious. 
 She had intended to look that word out in the 
 
64 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 dictionary to see what it meant, but had forgotten or 
 been too busy. 
 
 She was her own mistress, too, with carriages and 
 horses of her own, money of her own, settled on herself 
 for her own exclusive use, so that she could order out 
 from England as many things as she pleased without 
 consulting any one, which was convenient. Oh yes, 
 altogether she had spent a delightful winter — cold 
 weather they called it. 
 
 But now the cold weather was gone ; Jim said that 
 in another week or two the tattis would be in the doors 
 and windows and the thermantidotes at work. There 
 was no absolute necessity for her to wait till Jim's 
 leave. Why should she not go to the Hills at once? 
 Jim could easily follow on afterwards. She would put 
 the idea to him ; he would do anything she asked him. 
 Over and above that, he was dull company, with his 
 languages that were impossible to understand, his 
 books that no one but himself and his moonshee 
 cared to read, and his drills that she had long since 
 tired of watching. Ah, how soon a married couple 
 settled down to familiarity and commonplace prosiness ! 
 He used to talk a great deal about a perpetual honey- 
 moon, but of course that was all nonsense, and theirs 
 had been an absurd honeymoon. They were now just 
 like any other husband and wife ; and husbands, she 
 knew — all her married friends told her so, apart from 
 her own experience — were creatures to be managed ; 
 well managed, they were most useful. Every one said 
 she managed Jim well, and yet she was not conscious 
 of having given herself any particular trouble in the 
 matter, but supposed she had a peculiar aptitude 
 
YOUNG FOLKS AT HOME. 65 
 
 for managing all men — it seemed like it, at any rate. 
 Women she had never very mnch cared about. 
 
 She longed to see the Hills again, now that she was 
 well and strong and able to go about. The hot 
 weather before she had not had a chance, cooped up as 
 she had been in the house all day, going nowhere and 
 seeing no' one. And then the child had been such a 
 tie that the summer had slipped away without her 
 having done anything worth mentioning or even 
 remembering. 
 
 Lucy Vraille, " the most beautiful woman iu Asia," 
 as she lay stretched under her punkah, lazily watch- 
 ing its monotonous sway, and giving herself up 
 luxuriously to these reflections, richly deserved the 
 greater part of the extravagant epithet bestowed on 
 her by Mr. Eook. Marriage had enhanced her loveli- 
 ness, and as yet no extremes of temperature had 
 tampered with her complexion ; if anything, the 
 healthy outdoor life she had been leading had improved 
 it. An artist with any sense of colouring and apprecia- 
 tion of the poetry of form would have been glad of 
 such a model at any time ; but to have caught her 
 then, in all the luxury of indolent repose and unstudied 
 abandon, would have driven him well-nigh mad with 
 professional delight. She was indeed a fair subject for 
 a picture — a theme for a poem — a heroine fit to adorn 
 a fairy tale — a study wherewith to point a moral. 
 
 It was a pity that such a woman, who ought at least 
 to have been a Viceroy's consort, should be thrown 
 away upon such an uninteresting and mediocre fellow 
 as Jim Yraille. So every one said ; and so, probably, 
 Lucy was thinking as she looked at him standing in 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
66 JAMES YBAILLE. 
 
 the doorway. What a contrast ! What a disenchant- 
 ment his appearance cast upon the whole scene. A 
 few hours before he had been spic and span enough, 
 dressed in his spotless white clothing. But now it was 
 begrimed with dust and dirt, crumpled and creased ; his 
 face was smeared with streaks of dust, his sword was 
 rusted by the sweat of his horse's flank, his boots had 
 lost all polish, and his helmet its unsullied pipeclay 
 surface. He was very hot, very dirty, very unsightly, 
 and, amid such dainty surroundings, a monstrous 
 incongruity — a blot that robbed the picture of all its 
 charm. 
 
 He looked at his wife with intense admiration for a 
 moment, and then touched her cheek with his lips ; 
 just touched it, no more, for Lucy pushed his face 
 away. But she could not push his heart away ; 
 he was foolishly in love with her, and he said so ; that 
 had made him forget himself. 
 
 " There, don't come near me till you're clean," she 
 said — at once a natural and sensible remark. Lucy was 
 always natural and sensible where self was concerned. 
 
 He had been up since daybreak, and had been kept 
 in the lines longer than usual ; he was famished, he said, 
 and would be ready for breakfast in ten minutes. But, 
 before leaving the room, he walked over to a little cot 
 standing at the foot of his wife's bed, and looked at a 
 little face lying on a pillow no whiter than itself. A 
 little wailing voice had made itself heard through many 
 hours of the past night, and the child, worn out with 
 heat and weariness, was sleeping late. Its little limbs 
 were spread out wide ; it was not sleeping, as children 
 in England sleep, "cuddled up," but with tiny legs 
 
YOUNG FOLKS AT HOME. 67 
 
 and arms outstretched in a manner that spoke patheti- 
 cally of the heat. 
 
 "Poor little beggar," he muttered, bending over the 
 cot ; " we must get him to the Hills." Then stooping 
 lower still, and with a look of sudden concern, he began 
 to examine the child's face attentively. He dropped 
 upon his knees, and inserting his finger between the 
 little pouting lips, forced them apart, and took some- 
 thing from the child's mouth. It was but a speck of 
 brownish substance, but after looking at it closely in 
 the light, and smelling it, he called the ayah into the 
 room with a voice full of angry indignation. He 
 showed his finger to the woman and spoke rapidly in 
 Hindustani to her. She protested with many vehement 
 gesticulations, to which he paid no attention, but, 
 pointing to the door, repeated twice a word which 
 Lucy knew meant, " Go." 
 
 " No wonder he sleeps soundly," he said angrily to 
 his wife, " he's been drugged with opium. They will 
 do it, if they're not watched." 
 
 " Well, how was I to know ? " Lucy asked. 
 
 " No, no ; of course not. I've sent that woman 
 about her business, and I'll see about gettiog an 
 English nurse ; but, Lucy, the poor little chap will 
 want all your attention. It's a bad country for 
 children at best." 
 
 He was always interfering about the baby, but she 
 thought it wise to say nothing, and only showed her 
 resentment by pouting ; for Jim had discovered the 
 cause of those heavy sleeps which always succeeded the 
 child's outcries when they were prolonged beyond a 
 certain time, and for which she had never before been 
 
 p 2 
 
68 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 fully able to account. His idea of procuring a really 
 responsible white nurse was an excellent one, and in 
 applauding it she expressed surprise that it bad never 
 occurred to them before. 
 
 Vraille, in the plodding, persevering way that was 
 daily becoming more customary to him, set to work 
 to institute inquiries, and, after much advertising and 
 research, at last discovered a woman in the place itself 
 whom he thought might suit. She was the widow of a 
 corporal who had recently drunk himself to death ; 
 she was far from handsome, but was without encum- 
 brance, and bore a character for sobriety and honesty. 
 Jim sought her out and questioned her as to her in- 
 tentions and inclinations. Her intentions, she said, 
 were regulated by official arrangements, and she sup- 
 posed she would be drafted home with the next batch 
 of time-expired ; her inclinations were to do as she was 
 bid. She had no particular hankering after her native 
 land, as her relations were all dead and she had lost 
 touch with her friends ; but she had no desire to stay 
 in the country where, as she said, " she had no one 
 now to do for." This frame of mind seemed propitious 
 to Jim's scheme, and he asked her to call upon his wife 
 that evening. The hard-featured widow of Corporal 
 Foresight said she would do so, but would bind herself 
 to nothing. 
 
 It was not exactly the place of a captain serving on 
 full pay in a royal regiment to be touting for nurses, 
 and people tittered when they heard of it ; but he had 
 ceased to study appearances, and the only thing that 
 troubled him was the thought, every now and again, 
 that, though Lucy could not be expected to understand 
 
YOUNG FOLKS AT HOME. 69 
 
 Indian ways and customs, still she might take interest 
 all the same in his efforts to benefit their child. It sur- 
 prised him that she did not seem to care about it more. 
 
 He told his wife of the appointment he had made for 
 her, and Lucy said she would be sure to be back from 
 the gardens in time to keep it, but that he had chosen 
 rather an inconvenient day. He did not himself care 
 much about the gardens, and after a day of Sanscrit 
 roots preferred a game of racquets as a means of 
 clearing away the cobwebs weaved in his brain by the 
 patient moonshee. 
 
 He returned home before Lucy, and. found Mrs. 
 Foresight seated in the verandah with the baby on 
 her knee. The baby was the key to the situation 
 which the good woman contemplated taking, and she 
 appeared to be reconnoitring before deciding on her 
 course of action. Judging from the way in which 
 they seemed to understand one another, she had evi- 
 dently been studying his traits, talking to him in his 
 own language, and otherwise endeavouring to become 
 acquainted with his general character. 
 
 " I'll take on," she said, rising to her feet with the 
 baby in her arms when she saw Yraille. " I'll take on, 
 if I suit the lady, who's not at home after I've walked 
 three blazin' 'ot miles to see her ; and you may strike 
 me off the establishment as soon as she comes in an' 
 approves o' my transfer." 
 
 This woman was rather an oddity. Her face was as 
 hard and sharp as the corner of a street, and her figure 
 about as graceful as a lamp-post's ; but there was a 
 pleasant softness about her eye as it fell on the baby 
 that won Jim's heart, and, in spite of the ramrod-like 
 
70 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 rigidity of her person and the directness of her manner, 
 he determined to give her his support with his wife. 
 Lucy, when she discovered that Mrs. Foresight was a 
 good needlewoman, raised no objection, and the corporal's 
 widow was forthwith attached to Yraille's household 
 as nurse, lady's maid, needle-woman, and general 
 factotum, under the name Judith. She preferred, she 
 said, to wave her own flag than to sail under colours 
 that had never done her very much credit. 
 
 In less than a week Judith had relieved her mistress 
 of all care connected with the baby. She gathered him 
 to her arms and took him away. She kept him out of 
 earshot when he was cross, and only brought him into 
 his mother's society when he was good ; at night he 
 now slept under Judith's punkah, and Lucy's rest was 
 no longer disturbed by his pitiful little wailings and 
 constant demands for attention. This was a great relief. 
 A marked difference began to show itself, too, in the 
 child's general conduct. It ate more and cried less, it 
 slept at regular times, and slept well ; it even crowed 
 and cooed sometimes; it was quite a pattern baby, and 
 Judith a pattern nurse. She was also invaluable in 
 other ways — dress-making and mending, acting as 
 matron and housekeeper, taking charge of keys and 
 cupboards, looking after the native servants, and, as 
 Lucy put it, making herself generally useful. In- 
 deed, she saved her so much trouble that Mrs. Vraille 
 began to wonder how she had ever been able to manage 
 without her. 
 
 The most valuable characteristic of this woman was 
 her endurance of heat ; she seemed to mind the heat 
 no more than the punkah-coolie did, whereas poor Lucy 
 
YOUNG FOLKS AT HOME. 71 
 
 was quite incapacitated from taking an active interest 
 in anything but the bachelors' ball that was to be given 
 before the place became an utter abomination of desola- 
 tion from the now rapidly increasing exodus of cele- 
 brities. After that event she thought that she too, like 
 the other best people of the cantonment, would like to 
 get out of the raging, maddening heat. 
 
 When Jim came in one morning from the lines, 
 dirty as usual, and told her that he should not be able 
 to get away so soon as he had expected, as his major 
 had decided to take first leave, she thought it high 
 time to make definite arrangements for her own de- 
 parture immediately after the ball, and determined to 
 lay her plans before him that very day. 
 
 When he was clean and cool and white again, he 
 joined her at breakfast. The meal left nothing to be 
 desired, and had been prepared by a cook whose wages 
 were not inconsiderable. They were waited on by a 
 stately Khansamah, whose glossy blue-black beard 
 never showed more than one day's growth of white, 
 and dignified Mahometans in scrupulously clean 
 linen, with the Vraille crest and motto on a badge in 
 their turbans. The Khansamah was Lucy's stand-by, 
 and he could speak English quite well enough for her 
 purposes. Everything about her was well ordered 
 and good of its kind. She lived in good style — as 
 good as any of her neighbours, she was proud to think. 
 Their bungalow was one of the best, and, what was 
 more to the purpose, one of the coolest in the station. 
 They had quite a stud of horses in their stables, and 
 carriages of all sorts in their coach-house. Jim had 
 been as good as his word, and Lucy had little to 
 
72 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 complain of; he had given her all he promised, and 
 was daily gratifying fresh wants. 
 
 Beside his plate lay the morning pile of letters. 
 From the number he selected his own, which were few, 
 and handed the remainder to Lucy. She had many 
 correspondents; but he, as a rule, scarcely any. It 
 was mail day, however, and had brought the usual 
 weekly letter from Uncle Ben. 
 
 It was not very sociable of them, but, instead of 
 talking, they read their letters. Lucy, after shuffling 
 through hers quickly, glanced across the table at her 
 husband, and slipped one of them into her pocket 
 unopened ; it was a little matter that would keep, and 
 she wished to read it afterwards. It had been easy to 
 smuggle it away without his seeing, for he was 
 absorbed in his own correspondence. His forehead 
 was puckered and his brows contracted; his face 
 seemed to have grown visibly older in the last five 
 minutes ; the wrinkles were all showing in rigid, clear- 
 cut lines. He was getting to be quite an ugly man, 
 Lucy thought, as she looked at him ; but, at any rate, 
 he was a delightfully simple one. 
 
 He looked up and smiled faintly, then asked her 
 her news. She had none, except that a box, which she 
 was anxiously expecting, had been delayed. 
 " What box ? " he asked. 
 
 " Why, a box of dresses — I told you a long time ago 
 — but you are always mooning or moonsheeing " (she 
 seldom joked, but this was such a palpable pun) " instead 
 of listening, or you would have remembered. You 
 take less interest in my appearance, Jim, than any one 
 in the place." 
 
YOUNG FOLKS AT HOME. 73 
 
 "Some of these servants," Jim said in very bad 
 French, " understand English." 
 
 " Well, what if they do ? " she replied in her own 
 tongue. " It's true, and they want no telling. We 
 have not a taste in common." 
 
 She was annoyed about her dress ; but, apart from 
 that, how true was her remark, how utterly and 
 deplorably true ! She, even she, who was not preter- 
 naturally quick, had divined the truth long ago. They 
 had not a taste in common. His conversation was 
 about " Higher Standards " and " Sanscrit specials " and 
 other subjects of a similarly abstruse nature which she 
 could not be expected to understand ; nor did she try. 
 His ways were not her ways. If he made love to her, 
 he did so gravely, instead of gaily, as love should be 
 made; he was always talking of ideals and objects and 
 aims in life — looking ahead at ends, as he called them, 
 instead of enjoying the present like any other sensible 
 being. In place of amusing himself and making him- 
 self agreeable to the people who came to the house, he 
 would often leave the room while they were there, and 
 not return until they had gone. He had been positively 
 rude to Mr. Rook on more than one occasion ; and, 
 when he did go to a ball, he wanted to dance with his 
 own wife, which was absurd. Then, again, at other 
 times, he was always wanting her to accompany him 
 alone, and hanging about her apron-strings when he 
 was not wanted at all. A married woman was a 
 married woman, and Lucy had become a married 
 woman on purpose to enjoy the independence of the 
 position. It was not fair. She was disappointed in 
 Jim ; he had not turned out as she expected. 
 
74 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 He said nothing in answer to her remark, hut smiled 
 a feeble smile. 
 
 She would wake him up a hit, and force him to 
 take interest in her by hroaching the suhject of her 
 immediate departure to the Hills. " I've got a plan," 
 she said. 
 
 " A plan ? " he echoed. 
 
 " Yes, a plan ; that's what I said. I'm off to the 
 Hills directly after the bachelors' ball." 
 
 She had roused him at last. "I fear that's im- 
 possible, Lucy," he replied. 
 
 " Why impossible ? " 
 
 "I can't get leave," 
 
 " Hut I can." 
 
 " It would do the little chap all the good in the 
 world," he muttered. 
 
 " And it would do me all the good in the world, too. 
 Anyway, I'm off." 
 
 " Lucy, Lucy, think ! " he exclaimed, and then in a 
 lower tone continued, " think of the journey and 
 expense." 
 
 " Expense ? " 
 
 " Yes. If you and the child go now, it will mean 
 keeping up a double establishment. I've got this 
 house any way until July. I have been disappointed 
 about my leave. The hot weather is not unhealthy, 
 and I had intended taking two months, or three, if 
 possible, from the end of June ; but now my plans 
 may be all upset. "We must think about it ; you must 
 give me time to think about it." 
 
 His peculiar dreamy tone irritated her. She disliked 
 contradiction, too, and spoke up like a brave woman — 
 
TOUNG FOLKS AT HOME. 75 
 
 "You've got from now until the ball, nearly three 
 weeks, to think about it. Will that do ? " 
 
 " Three weeks ; oh, yes, plenty of time — plenty of 
 time. You see, Lucy, your expenses last year were 
 very heavy." 
 
 He was not even listening to her ; he was thinking 
 of something else as usual. " What has that to do 
 with what we were talking about ? You are a rich 
 man, are you not ? " 
 
 " I was," he said ; and then, pushing away his plate, 
 he rose and left the room. He was pre-occupied, and 
 when he was pre-occupied he was rude. 
 
76 JAMES VEA1LLE. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOT WEATHER. 
 
 He was in trouble — in evident trouble ; and he wished 
 to be alone with his trouble, a very unsatisfactory state 
 of things for a married man, a young one especially. 
 Why did he not seek consolation from the partner of 
 his joys and sorrows ? There had been a time, once, 
 when, instead of brooding over a trouble alone, he would 
 have rushed with it at once to Lucy ; and there had 
 been a time, too, when he would have poured out his 
 heart impetuously to his wife without waiting to weigh 
 his words or consider the consequences. That time 
 had passed ; it had glided imperceptibly away. He 
 was not conscious of when or how the change had been 
 effected, or even that there was a change at all. It 
 never occurred to him that he himself had changed, 
 still less that Lucy had ; but little by little he had 
 begun to be more cautious in approaching her 
 with his hopes and fears, more and more fearful of 
 vexing her, or, as he would have called it, of paining 
 her. It was merely the natural drifting apart of two 
 wholly dissimilar minds, a social phenomenon that no 
 bond however apparently indissoluble can counteract. 
 He had begun to believe, if he thought about it at all, 
 that there are many topics, too many, that a man can- 
 not discuss with a woman, even if that woman is his 
 
HOT WEATHER. 77 
 
 wife ; many feminine interests a man, even a husband, 
 cannot understand. He had often tried to understand 
 his wife and had failed, and so he supposed that she too 
 had tried to understand him with as little success. 
 She was no more to blame than he. They loved one 
 another, he presumed, as much as ever, and that 
 sufficed. Ah ! yes ; that sufficed. He was getting 
 older ; his impetuosity was cooling ; his keen sense of 
 pleasure was becoming dull ; the edge was gone, some- 
 how. And how impetuous he had been ! taking every 
 question to her straight and expecting her to under- 
 stand ; seeking her sympathy because he was proud of 
 commanding it ; loving her simplicity, and thinking only 
 of her fondness for him — but that time had passed. It 
 seemed to have been so long, long ago that he caught 
 himself doubting sometimes whether it had really ever 
 been at all, and whether it had existed only in his 
 imagination. But surely no ! Surely the thought 
 was unworthy ; there must have been truth as there 
 was reality in those happy evenings spent in Cabstand 
 Square. And yet those times were somehow gone. 
 
 What should he say to her now ? how break the 
 news ? How would she take Uncle Ben's letter ? A 
 man could never tell how a woman would take any- 
 thing—much less a woman like Lucy. Two years' 
 acquaintance had helped him little in guessing at the 
 course she was ever likely to pursue. But perhaps 
 she would show her true colours in adversity and 
 " come out strong " — most likely, women often did ; 
 and he had never yet seen Lucy under adverse circum- 
 stances. 
 
 As nothing was to be gained by delay, he determined 
 
78 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 to strike while the iron was hot, and, finding Lucy in 
 the drawing-room writing letters, went up to her, and, 
 putting his hand on her shoulder, said softly — " Lucy, 
 dear, come and talk to me a little ; I've something 
 important to tell you." 
 
 " I'm very busy," she said, hastily covering her letter 
 with the blotting-pad ; " can't you wait ? " 
 
 "Yes, I can wait," he said slowly, and, taking his 
 hand off her shoulder, picked up an envelope addressed, 
 " Herbert Rook, Esq." 
 
 " I should not have more correspondence with this 
 man than I could help, if I were you," he continued. 
 
 " Why not ? " she asked. 
 
 " Well, he's a loose sort of fish, I think — not quite 
 straight." 
 
 " Do you know anything against him ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, only that is what I think." 
 
 " My dear Jim, I don't really believe you know any- 
 thing about it ; he's received everywhere, and, if you 
 would only try to make yourself a little pleasant to 
 him, you'd get to like him just as much as every one 
 else does." 
 
 " Well, well, I dare say you are right. What are 
 you writing to him about ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing; only a picnic he is getting up." It 
 was a very small picnic, consisting only of himself 
 and his great friend, young Hale of the cavalry, as 
 joint hosts, Mrs. Palmira, young Hale's special admira- 
 tion, and Lucy (if she would come) ; so small that it 
 was not worth her while to enter into particulars. 
 
 Jim put the envelope down and walked away. When 
 she had finished writing her acceptance, she joined him 
 
EOT WEATHER. 79 
 
 under the punkah, and, dropping wearily into a lounge- 
 chair, said, " Well, what is it ? " 
 
 " I've had very bad news, Lucy — very bad indeed." 
 " You're not going to be ordered away from here, are 
 
 you?" 
 
 " No, no ; it's about money." 
 
 She turned a shade paler, and made no reply. 
 
 " My money," he continued ; " I'm afraid, from what 
 my uncle says, that I've lost a great deal." 
 
 Lucy regained her composure, and the colour crept 
 back into her cheeks again. 
 
 " I cannot tell you how grieved I am that this blow 
 should have come so soon after our marriage. Until 
 to-day I had not so much as a suspicion, indeed I had 
 not. You know that, don't you, dear ? I would have cut 
 off my hand sooner than deceive you about a single penny. 
 However, thank Heaven, your money is all right." 
 
 " How much have you lost ? " 
 
 "Lucy, if this news I hear to-day be true — and I 
 fear it is — I've lost the equivalent of half my income." 
 
 He drew his hand over his forehead, and Lucy said, 
 " Oh, what a nuisance ! " 
 
 Then, holding Uncle Ben's letter open before him 
 and glancing at it occasionally, he attempted a rough 
 explanation. She listened and tried to understand. 
 But when, after a time/details had been entered into 
 more minutely, and it appeared that servants would 
 have to be discharged, horses and carriages sold, a less 
 expensive house rented, and various other unpleasant 
 means taken towards retrenchment, she fairly lost all 
 patience. 
 
 " I don't understand your shares and stocks," she 
 
80 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 said, " I don't know what you mean by securities and 
 bank dividends; but I know that I never did like that 
 Uncle Ben, as you call him, and always thought you 
 were a great deal too much under his thumb." 
 
 Jim looked surprised. Then he attempted an 
 explanation in vindication of his uncle's character, but 
 it was up-hill work. Tn vain he pointed out that his 
 father, and not his uncle, had invested the lost money, 
 and that a bank failure was an eventuality impossible 
 to foresee. Uncle Ben had himself lost heavily through 
 the same cause, he said ; .but that was no argument. 
 
 " How do you know he has ? " was all she asked. 
 
 For answer he handed her his uncle's letter ; but she 
 declined to read it, saying, " Oh, of course it's very 
 easy for him to say so," whereat Jim declared that her 
 insinuations were ill-natured and absurd, and she told 
 him not to lose his temper. 
 
 It was not that she would not, but that she could not, 
 understand. She could neither divest her mind of the 
 belief that Uncle Ben was at the bottom of all the 
 mischief, nor comprehend the significance of their loss. 
 So many thousand pounds ! The figures were figures 
 and nothing more — an expression merely — a computa- 
 tion in round numbers of which she could not realise 
 the detailed importance when placed before her in bulk. 
 Had the money been taken out of her purse in driblets, 
 had its value been reduced to yards of trimming which 
 she could see, or its loss computed in hours of boredom 
 which she could feel, then she might have understood 
 her husband's worried expression. But, as it was, she 
 dismissed the subject as dull, and began to discuss the 
 Hills again as soon she got a chance. 
 
HOT WEATHER. 81 
 
 He likened apathetically, neither acquiescing in her 
 arrangements nor raising objections to them; but he 
 did not again allude to his uncle's letter or to the news 
 it contained. 
 
 " You are not attending to me," she said at last ; 
 " you don't even seem to care whether I go or not." 
 
 He was terribly sorry for her ; she would feel the 
 consequences of his loss far more than he ; and more than 
 all he regretted the apparent violation of all the promises 
 he had made her before their marriage. It had been 
 his custom all through life, when in doubt or trouble, 
 to seek counsel of his uncle. Now he felt the want of 
 the old gentleman's advice and sympathy more acutely 
 than he had ever deemed possible before his marriage. 
 
 A mau, even a strong-willed man, which Vraille was 
 not, likes to talk a trouble over ; the mere fact of 
 discussing it takes the edge off it somewhat ; discussion 
 being as good for the mind as confession for the soul. 
 But he was not a man to wear his grievance on his sleeve 
 or cry it in the market-place, and, so, with as much 
 show of resignation as he could muster, set himself to 
 work to meet the coming alteration in his circumstances. 
 But he did feel the want of Uncle Ben's advice and 
 sympathy in his strait ; he was alone with his worries 
 and his account-books. 
 
 There was much to arrange — many details to be 
 gone into ; and in all matters of domestic economy 
 he was forced to consult Judith. Lucy, when he 
 questioned her, invariably referred him to Judith. 
 " Oh, Judith manages that, you know," she would say, 
 or "Judith has the keys," or " I handed all my books 
 over to Judith." To Judith, therefore, he applied, and 
 
 VOL. I. g 
 
82 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 never applied in vain : she knew all about everything, 
 and it appeared to him was able to render an exceed- 
 ingly good account of her stewardship. "What would 
 his wife do without Judith ? he thought. Still, it was 
 only fair to let her know that their mode of life would 
 have to be conducted for the future on a sensibly 
 reduced scale. This he asked Lucy to do, but, as she 
 forgot, did it himself. 
 
 " Do you mean," Judith asked him, " that you're 
 about rejuicin' me wages ? " 
 
 " No ; certainly not," said Jim, flushing up, and 
 wishing with all his heart that he had not meddled in 
 matters so purely domestic. 
 
 " Because, if that's your bother," she continued, 
 " I'm willing to stay on without any till times improve. 
 I've got sorter fond of the child, and don't want to 
 leave him yet a while." 
 
 She said this in a semi-d.efiant way, clutching the 
 baby to her and tossing her head so violently that she 
 nearly tossed off the huge sun-hat she was wearing. 
 All her movements were jerky and mechanical ; she was 
 a wooden woman, like a Noah's wife out of a toy 
 ark. Her brown holland dress was straight and stiff, 
 without any attempt at embelbshment or decoration in 
 its composition. She was a hard-faced, hard-bosomed, 
 hard headed soldier's widow who had not seen better 
 times, and yet Jim Yraille, the whilom London dandy, 
 found a sympathy in her vulgarity that he had never 
 yet discovered in all his lovely Lucy's elegant 
 refinement. 
 
 " Whatever happens, we must try not to part with 
 J udith," he said to his wife that evening. 
 
EOT WEATHER. 83 
 
 " Part with her ! of course not ; she's a most useful 
 woman." 
 
 " She is a thoroughly good woman, Lucy, and we 
 ought to be very kind to her. She has not a friend in 
 the world, and never complains ; she has not a pleasure 
 in life, unless it's that boy, and never thinks of pleasure, 
 but does her duty honestly and to the very best of her 
 ability. Ah ! it often occurs to me what lessons fine 
 ladies — and fine gentlemen, too — might learn of humble 
 people whom they think not worth their notice." 
 
 " But Judith is by no means a humble person, let me 
 tell you ; not nearly so humble as a servant should be, 
 I think. She often lays down the law to me about baby, 
 and once she had the impertinence to tell me that if 
 I did not have him with me oftener, he would forget me. 
 As if a child would ever forget its own mother ! " 
 
 Jim sighed. 
 
 " The most beautiful thing in all nature," he said, 
 "is a mother's love for her child. Marriages, they 
 say, are made in heaven ; but very few are, Lucy, I 
 am beginning to fear, judging from what I see in this 
 place of husbands and wives. No ; a mother's love 
 for her child is the only really heaven-born emotion ; 
 that is perfect, unselfish, sacred. Judith told me once 
 that she had an only boy like little Jim, and that he 
 died just as he was beginning to know her and call 
 her by the name that women most like to hear. She 
 cried, poor woman, when she told me. It would pain 
 you terribly to see our little chap growing up loving 
 his nurse more than his mother. That is what Judith 
 meant, and perhaps if he were with us more it would 
 be a good thing. You see, she is naturally very fond of 
 
 g 2 
 
84 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 children, and" — he continued smiling — "she is a 
 dangerous rival for the little chap's affections." 
 
 " So am I fond of children," Lucy exclaimed ; " but 
 I like them with me at the right times and in the 
 right places — not in the drawing-room, for instance, 
 or when visitors are here. But, a projoos, have you 
 settled yet when we are to go to Simla ? The heat is 
 really more than I can bear." 
 
 This question had been put to him twenty times a 
 day for the past six weeks in the same form and with 
 the same persistence. He had answered it with the 
 same evasion every time ; he did not yet know whether 
 he could manage it ; he was doing his utmost — in any 
 case, Simla was out of the question as too expensive. 
 
 " I shall be able to tell you definitely next month," 
 he replied. " I can't get leave myself, as the major has 
 gone away sick ; still, a change would do both you and 
 the child good. But, as I have told you before, I do 
 not wish you to go so far away as Simla." 
 
 " And why not ? " 
 
 " I have given you my reasons many times, Lucy." 
 
 " What nonsense ! " 
 
 "Nonsense or not, I am afraid I mean what I say." 
 
 " And I mean to go." 
 
 " Look here, Lucy," he said very quietly, " I have 
 already told you my wishes ; as they are disregarded, I 
 must tell you, once and for all, that I do not intend 
 you to go to Simla. I have never, since we have been 
 married, refused you anything you asked me or 
 thwarted you in a single wish ; but, as I now consider 
 rny reasons good, I thoroughly intend this once to 
 exert my authority " — the word had a peculiarly un- 
 
no T WEATHER. 85 
 
 pleasant ring about it— "and I shall let you go when 
 and where I think best." 
 
 She was amazed. This was the man whom she had 
 
 led every one to believe she could twist round her 
 
 little finger. She would have her own way — she must 
 
 " I shall talk it over with Mrs. Palmira," she said, 
 
 " and tell her what you say." 
 
 " No, you won't, Lucy, if you are wise ; a woman 
 who takes her home grievances abroad to air gets 
 laughed at for her pains. Besides, what could twenty 
 Mrs. Palmiras do? But, apart from all that, surely 
 your pride, your affection for me, 5 our sense of honour 
 would prevent you from discussing with others things 
 that only concern you and me." 
 
 " Me, you mean," she interrupted indignantly. 
 " What concerns you, concerns me ; it is the same 
 thing. Wait a little, dearest, have a little more 
 patience, and you will see that I am right. Just wait 
 until I have made the necessary arrangements, and 
 then we can see how the land lies. Look here, dear, I can 
 explain to you in five minutes, and you ought to know." 
 But she would not listen, she was hurt and indig- 
 nant, and did not believe any arrangements were 
 necessary. 
 
 Nor did she believe that any changes would in 
 reality be made in their mode of life, and was quite 
 surprised when, at the end of the month, a number of 
 servants were discharged. It was not until her two 
 carriage-horses had been sold, and her landau put up 
 to auction, that she seemed to understand that her 
 husband was not so rich as when she had married him. 
 Then she began to complain, and to resent the curtail- 
 
86 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 ment of her amusements. She was being made a fool 
 of, she pathetically exclaimed, before the whole place. 
 It could not be helped, Jim said ; she had her Arab, 
 he his charger, and with the dog-cart and pony they 
 would have to manage until he was promoted and 
 things looked up again. 
 
 But things did not look up at once. Jim left off 
 playing polo, and Lucy was obliged to uss Mr. Book's 
 saddle-horses much more frequently than formerly. 
 Her weekly allowances for household expenditure were 
 cut down — not that that signified much in itself, for 
 the grave Khansamah still remained, and she could 
 still order, Judith managing the rest ; but, having 
 outrun her private account, and with nothing to fall 
 back upon, she was obliged to arrange matters with an 
 accommodating Schroff in the bazaar, to whom Mrs. 
 Palmira had introduced her, saying he was good for 
 five thousand at any time, and very discreet. 
 
 The incessant gaiety of the cold weather had departed 
 and given place to the humdrum routine of mid- 
 summer amusement. A gallop sometimes before break- 
 fast, a long, weary day, a drive to the gardens in the 
 evening, an occasional dinner-party, now and then a 
 small dance ; that was all. Government House was no 
 more ; its inmates had fled, all the best people had left, 
 and those that remained were for the most part too 
 listless to entertain. Oh ! it was horribly hot — hotter 
 than poor Lucy had ever imagined even India could be ; 
 the nights were as hot as the days ; the winds — that 
 was the curious thing — instead of cooling the air, 
 blew across the scorched country like blasts from a 
 furnace, and necessitated the shutting up of every 
 
HOT WEATHER. 87 
 
 crevice in the doors and windows throughout the house 
 during the day. "Worse than all, her skin was losing the 
 bloom for which it had been famous ; the terrible heat 
 was literally spoiling her complexion. It was a shame ! 
 
 To her friends she accounted for the altered con- 
 dition of her household by explaining that henceforth 
 she would take up her permanent residence in the Hills, 
 and, so far as the plains were concerned, would only be a 
 bird of passage. She was only waiting, she said, to make 
 a few final arrangements to be off. No one believed her, 
 for in India, where it may be almost said that one's inner 
 consciousness and the whole outside world are only 
 divided by a " chic," every one knows everything about 
 every one else as a matter of course, aud Jim's story, 
 once she had confided it to her friends Mr. Book and 
 Mrs. Palmira, was patent to the whole station. 
 
 "I want to go to Simla, that's the truth," she said 
 to Mrs. Palmira, who was her confidante and general 
 adviser. 
 
 " Easily do that, my dear," said that handsome leader 
 of local fashion. 
 
 " Jim won't let me ; but don't tell any one that, it 
 would sound so ridiculous," said Lucy. " What shall 
 I do ? I want to go, and I can't afford it by myself." 
 
 "Try crying," suggested Mrs. Palmira. 
 
 •'I've tried everything, and he only says, c You mu&t 
 wait.' " 
 
 " Try Eamchundar Bux, and come with me to Tainee ; 
 it's a capital little place." 
 
 " Ramchundar Bux was rather rude when I asked him 
 for five hundred the other day, and threatened to tell 
 Jim." 
 
88 JAMES VRAILLK 
 
 "Did lie give you the money ? — that's the great 
 thing." 
 
 " Yes, he gave it to me in the end ; you see I intended 
 to pay him something this month, but found I couldn't." 
 " Well, give up the Simla idea, and get ' a go' of 
 fever." 
 
 " Get a go of fever ? " 
 
 " Yes, to be sure ; headache, lassitude, cold chill", 
 loss of appetite. No Jim in the world — especially your 
 Jim — could withstand that ; and then come along with 
 me to Tainee, brat and all ; we'll have a capital time. 
 Young Hale, my own peculiar, is coming, and I dare say 
 Berty Rook will look us up." 
 
 While Lucy was turning Mrs Palmira's suggestions 
 over in her mind, Jim suddenly told her that he had 
 taken rooms for her at an hotel at Tainee, and that she, 
 Judith, and the boy should start the following week. 
 
 " Oh, that's the very thing I was going to suggest 
 to you, Jim dear ; Mrs. Palmira is going too. Oh, 
 whatever made you think of Tainee, I wouder; oh, 
 how delightful ! " 
 
 "I'm glad you're pleased, sweetheart," he said, 
 smiling. " I wanted it to be a surprise. Gro, my 
 darling ; go and enjoy yourself. If I can't get leave in 
 August, you can stay till then ; if I can, I'll join you 
 there for a month." 
 
 So, in due course, Lucy joined Mrs. Palmira at 
 Tainee, and set to work enjoying herself as much as 
 she could within the small limits of its small society 
 — it was a very unpretentious place, but cool — while 
 Jim remained behind to superintend the movement of 
 his household goods into his new and smaller house. 
 
HOT WEATHER. 89 
 
 The fierce summer blazed on, and .Tim's life varied 
 not one whit from day to day. He struggled on with 
 his moonshee, drilled and disciplined the battery for 
 his absent major, settled himself in his new house, 
 dined at mess en garqon (which he found, rather to 
 his surprise, he thoroughly enjoyed), and read his 
 Bagh-o-bahar and Baital Pachchisi assiduously. Then 
 dust-storms swept the country ; the clouds banked up 
 and burst in peals of thunder. The monsoon broke 
 and the rains poured down. The treacherous Indian 
 autumn had commenced. 
 
 The war that had brought so many beside himself 
 to India was practically over ; the retreat was being 
 carried out. Two years before his heart had beat 
 excitedly at the scare of war; he had come to India 
 full of hope. Scare had followed scare ; but not for 
 months after his arrival had war been actually declared. 
 He had applied to go — thousands had applied — and now 
 the war was over, and he had missed it. He need have 
 been in no desperate hurry, after all. But his thoughts 
 had ceased to dwell upon those things ; the soreness of 
 his court-martial had passed away somewhat ; he could 
 even think dispassionately of Colonel Dare ; and his high 
 hopes had dwindled down to examinations in the verna- 
 cular and periodical inspections. The battery had given 
 him plenty of employment, and he was interested 
 in the work; his examination he meant to read for in 
 earnest now, and pass if he could. In spite of three or 
 four attacks of fever, he lived on cheerfully, forgetting all 
 unpleasantness in the past and looking forward to his 
 wife's return as the happy ending of a leaveless summer 
 and the happy beginning of a season of enjoyment. 
 
90 JAMES VLAILLE. 
 
 She came at last, radiant, happy, lovely — all her 
 health and strength restored, the bloom of her beauty 
 as fresh and charming as it had ever been. 
 
 She was fall of her doings and amusements ; she 
 had spent a very pleasaut time, she said, and had 
 enjoyed her stay immensely ; but Tainee, she averred, 
 was rather a dull place, and for many reasons she was 
 glad to get back. She did not add that an outrunning of 
 the constable beyond immediate hope of capture had 
 curtailed her visit : that was a minor reason which 
 would probably explain itself in time. 
 
 There were now, as Lucy said, only a few weeks 
 of moderate heat to endure, and then — then the 
 winter season would begin with all its attendant 
 gaiety. 
 
 One by one the various celebrities began to return, 
 and Lucy hailed each fresh arrival with delight. Soon 
 the place began to fill rapidly, and the leading spirits 
 announced a subscription bail in the Kursaal. Tuen 
 callers became more and more numerous, until Jim 
 began to feel that the lonely hot weather he had spent 
 was indeed a thing of the d.smal past. 
 
 The rains had ceased, and the sun shone out with 
 some of his past ferocity, as if spitefully reluctant to 
 part with his power. It was hot still, and fever was 
 abundant. 
 
 Little Jim, who had come back from Tainee so 
 altered in appearance and improved in intelligence 
 tlint Jim had hardly known him, began to lose his 
 colour again. Instead of sitting up m Judith's arms, 
 lookiug about him with eyes full of wonderment and 
 interest, as he had done at first, he began to whine and 
 
HOT WEATHER. 91 
 
 whimper, dropping his head upon Judith's shoulder 
 and refusing to bo amused. 
 
 " Oh, I don't think it's anything," Lucy said ; but 
 Judith feared something was the matter, and Jim 
 went for the doctor. The doctor confirmed Judith's 
 fears : little Jim had a slight touch of fever. 
 
 This unfortunately happened the day before the ball, 
 and, instead of getting well during the night like a 
 considerate child, little Jim woke in the morning hot, 
 fretful, and evidently unhappy. 
 
 The evening came. The ball dress hung upon a 
 wicker stand in Lucy's room ; Judith had put the last 
 few finishing touches to it, and Lucy Was standing by, 
 glancing alternately at it and her own face in the 
 glass. It was a beautiful dress — a far more beautiful 
 face. 
 
 She was ready dressed when Jim came into her 
 room in a lamentable state of preparation— or want of 
 it. 
 
 "Why, Jim," she exclaimed, "you're not ready, and 
 the carriage is at the door." 
 
 " The doctor has just been, and he says the boy is 
 not so well to-night — far from well, in fact. Lucy, 
 I'm afraid he's worse than we thought." 
 
 " Why, he's only a little feverish ; he'll be all right 
 in the morning. I heard the doctor say, over and over 
 again, that we need not be the least anxious. But do 
 go and get ready, there's a good fellow." 
 
 " I don't wish to go to-night, Lucy." 
 
 " Not go ! " 
 
 " No ; I couldn't. I couldn't be away when the poor 
 little chap is ill; he might get worse." 
 
92 JAMES YRAILLE. 
 
 " This is too ridiculous ! " Lucy said, with tears of 
 disappointment starting to her eyes ; " it's too 
 annoying. We could easily be sent for if we were 
 wanted ; it's not more than a mile." 
 
 " A mile might make all the difference ; but if it 
 were a hundred yards 1 would not, could not go." 
 
 " The doctor said there was no cause for anxiety." 
 
 " I have none — as yet." 
 
 She argued, and. protested and implored, but it was 
 no use ; Jim was as firm as a rock, and, as she told 
 him, as obstinate as a mule. She could go if she liked, 
 he said, there was not the slightest reason why she 
 should not, but he would stay at home. 
 
 " And mind the baby," she sneered. She was fast 
 getting angry at his persistence. 
 
 He did not answer. 
 
 "Do you expect me to go there alone in an open 
 carriage ? " she demanded. 
 
 " I have got a closed one for you ; but I'll drive to 
 the door with you, if you like." 
 
 " A nice state you're in to drive to the door ; and I 
 can't wait while you dress. Will you come later on? " 
 
 " I will not promise, Lucy." 
 
 " You want to stay at home and flirt with Judith," 
 she laughed contemptuously. 
 
 " Poking fun at me will do no good," he replied ; 
 " and you are wasting time." 
 
 His coolness exasperated her. " No," she cried, "no 
 one would accuse you of flirting, if they do of other 
 things," and she flung out of the room. 
 
 The very walls rang with her words as he sat alone 
 trying to read, but listening instead for sounds from 
 
HOT WEATHER. 93 
 
 the other side of the house ; the very walls repeated 
 her words and echoed and re-echoed them, flinging 
 them in his teeth as she had done. The whole scene 
 of his court-martial, the face of the president, those 
 of the members aud witnesses, rose up one by one 
 before hiiu, and he could hear the accusation against 
 him slowly repeated over and over ugam a hundred 
 times. He could hear himself pleading his innocence, 
 now before the court, now before his uncle ; he could 
 hear himself protesting it to Lucy. He could re- 
 member every word of her answer to him then, and 
 now 
 
 He made his bearer stay within call outside his 
 window; and, as the clock on his mantel-shelf struck each 
 half-hour, he visited the room where his sick child lay. 
 
 The night wore on. 
 
 In the distance he could just catch the faint echoes 
 of the dance music, close at hand the waitings of his 
 child and the soothing songs that Judith was singing 
 to it. He was a sad man that night. It was pitiable 
 to see the tiny fingers clasping and unclasping them- 
 selves in petty misery ; pitiable to see so small a thing 
 suffering so much; to feel the heat of its little body; 
 to watch the blinking eyes trying vainly to close in 
 sleep ; to hear the piteous little cries and to know that 
 nothing could be done in answer to their meaningless 
 appeals. It was a sad experience to look at the 
 puckered lips and flushed face. But there was another 
 and a sadder experience that honest Jim was to suffer 
 in addition. 
 
 The night wore on. 
 
 The music became more and more distinct as other 
 
91 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 sounds died out of the breathless air ; but a noiseless 
 thing was speeding on its way throughout the length 
 and breadth of the land, from bazaar to bazaar, from 
 mouth to mouth, on wings swifter than those on which 
 the telegraph can fly — a thing that spreads and spreads, 
 covering thousands of miles in a single day, no one 
 knows how — a thing called news. 
 
 The night wore on, and Jim sat and watched. 
 
 The baby's cries were getting fainter ; the strains of 
 the happy music louder. The doctor, in full evening 
 dress, had called for the second time since Vraille's 
 watch began, and his report was favourable. The news 
 that had started at sundown was spreading, spreading, 
 spreading, getting nearer and nearer every minute. 
 
 The night wore on. 
 
 The giey mists were curling over the ground. The 
 last few bars of the last waltz were being played, and 
 the ball was nearly over. Judith's voice was still. 
 The news was approaching. 
 
 The morning broke, and the sun had fairly started 
 on another of its brilliant courses. The child was 
 sound asleep ; Judith was dozing. All was well : the 
 bearer in attendance might go. 
 
 The watcher rose from his chair and listened. 
 There was a voice at the gate which he recognised as 
 Herbert Rook's, and in answer to it Jim heard his wife 
 say, " Good night — or morning rather." 
 
 She stood before him, a vision of dishevelled loveliness. 
 His bearer rushed excitedly into the room — 
 
 " Sahib, Sahib ! Great news ! The tribes have risen 
 in revolt and massacred the white envoy. The war will 
 all break out afresh ! " 
 
( M ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HIS CHANCE. 
 
 The sleepy summer awoke into activity. The treaty 
 proclaiming peace had been ignored ; England's envoy 
 had been murdered, and the war that had already cost 
 so many lives must now begin again. Throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land flashed incessant orders ; 
 the very air seemed to breathe of preparation ; staff and 
 departmental officers talked of nothing but organisation ; 
 concentration and mobilisation followed ; occupation 
 commenced before evacuation was complete, and retreat 
 recoiled into advance. The dusty columns wending 
 their slow way back to India, decimated and inert after 
 their famous return march, were met by fresh faces 
 eager for the horrors of which they had only heard but 
 never seen ; the trains rolled in and discharged their 
 freights ; the great trunk roads were occupied with 
 marching men and congested with incessant traffic ; 
 and even the rough tracks leading to the front were soon 
 crowded with troops and stores, vehicles of all sorts, 
 lumber and impedimenta, driven cattle and beasts of 
 burden. One thought dominated the minds of men ; 
 one desire impelled them in one direction ; their one 
 desire was to advance. From the pleasure resorts in 
 the cool hills men flocked to join their stations ; out 
 
96 JAMES YRAILLE. 
 
 from borne they came, struggling to be first in the 
 field, eager for active service. 
 
 Obedience to orders was not enough, applications for 
 employment in any capacity filled the post-bags and 
 ■were delivered in shoals. Yraille among the number 
 wrote his letter with a trembling hand and took it to 
 his major. 
 
 " What you too ? " asked that officer, laughing ; " and 
 how about the young 'un ? " 
 
 He did not ask, "How about your wife?" which 
 struck Yraille as odd; but the fact was that there was 
 a general impression in the station, though Yraille did 
 not know it, that Mrs. Vraille was a woman well able 
 to take care of herself. 
 
 " I won't apply if you don't wish it," said Jim, 
 slowly ; " but there seems little chance now of our 
 being sent, and I should like to go." 
 
 He put it in that way; but if he had said he was 
 burning to go, calculating every chance, living in 
 hourly hope of being sent, he would have spoken no 
 more than the truth. 
 
 " Most of us would like to go," said the major. 
 
 " Most of us have no bad mark against our names that 
 we would like to wipe out." He was getting excited, 
 and in another minute would have flashed out in one 
 of those old impulsive bursts of passion which were so 
 far less common w T ith him now than formerly ; but the 
 major cut him short. 
 
 " Still harping on that old grievance," he said ; '" it's 
 idiotic. But look here, if you're bent on this business 
 I think I see my way to help you. I've got now in my 
 pocket a letter from an old friend of mine, asking me if 
 
HIS CHANCE. 97 
 
 I can recommend a man of certain qualities and 
 character for his personal staff. He's a curious old 
 fellow, you know, very touchy upon certain subjects, 
 and prides himself upon his independence ; he binds 
 me to strict secrecy ; still I am obliged to ask if you 
 would accept such an appointment if it came your 
 way." 
 
 " Accept ! " cried Jim, starting to his feet and way- 
 ing his application in the air. " Accept ! only try 
 me ! " 
 
 " "Well, well, don't get excited, and don't chuck that 
 letter away ; give it to me and I will send it on. I 
 believe they want men for the Transport, and you may 
 as well have more irons in the fire than one." 
 
 " This is most awfully good of you," said Jim, twirl- 
 ing his moustache nervously and trying his utmost to 
 appear calm. 
 
 "Tush," said the other, "I owe you a good turn, 
 Jim, that's the truth. You've done your work like a 
 man, and pulled the battery through the hot weather 
 and some decidedly difficult official worries pluckily 
 and well. Hallo ! what are you blushing like a girl 
 for ? — it's a silly trick you've got, old fellow, and doesn't 
 become you." 
 
 Praise is sweet. Jim felt its sweetness all the more 
 for its rarity; it was the first time he had heard any 
 reference to his work. He could never take his troubles 
 or successes home with him, for Lucy could not under- 
 stand his difficulties, she told him, and objected, she 
 said, to having stable-talk brought into her drawing- 
 room. Balls and dinners, dresses and tennis tourna- 
 ments, were suitable subjects for discussion, but not 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 " shop." Well-tutored as tie fancied himself in the 
 ways of the world, he was childishly simple enough to 
 be pleased at praise. He felt his folly and blushed. 
 
 " You did my work for me while I was away as I like 
 it done," continued the major. " You are a reliable 
 fellow, though compliments are not much in my way, 
 and I shall submit your name." 
 
 This man had formed his own opinion of his captain, 
 and was glad of a chance of practically expressing 
 it. 
 
 Vraille jumped upon his horse and galloped off. His 
 chance had come ; he knew it, he felt it ; his reputation, 
 perhaps his brevet, was as good as gained. Lucy would 
 congratulate him ; she would be pleased, and think more 
 highly of him than ever when he told her of the com- 
 pliments that had been paid him. Ah, it was worth 
 the long, long months of weary work ; it was gratifying 
 in the extreme to have its worth acknowledged. He 
 felt proud of himself, and happy to think that his wife 
 would be prouder still. He was happier then tban he 
 had been for many a long day, for somehow life lately 
 had not been altogether linked sweetness long drawn 
 out. There was always a feeling in his heart that 
 something was wanting in his home, something missing ; 
 and Jim was bothered with the thought that that 
 something must be due to a cross-grained trait in his 
 own uncomfortable character, which it was his bounden 
 duty to discover and rectify, but could not. He was. 
 not a ladies' man ; he had not the knack of putting 
 things in an agreeable or interesting way, so that his 
 wife cared to listen. "When he talked, he always seemed 
 to be talking over her head, which was pedantic. He 
 
•SIS CHANCE. 99 
 
 had tried reading aloud his favourite authors to her, 
 but she said he always selected the wrong time for 
 doing so, and his utmost elocutionary efforts only 
 resulted in producing boredom. His ideas of romance 
 were not hers, and at one time he had really imagined 
 himself so very romantic, and marriage the acme of 
 romance. Marriage had opened his eyes to that and a 
 great many other of his mistakes. " Mea culpa, mea 
 culpa," he had sung so repeatedly that he believed in 
 the moral of his song. " How about the young 'un ? " 
 his major had asked. "Well, as he thought it out, he 
 felt pretty certain his fault did not lie there. In his 
 younger days, he had never been partial to children ; 
 indeed, he had lived far too rapidly to give them a 
 thought. But this child, he was surprised to find, 
 occupied more and more of his thoughts with each 
 succeeding day. Puny, feeble little bit of humanity 
 that it was, it partially filled that void which in his 
 foolish fancy he was always imagining existed in his 
 life. The sight of the boy in Judith's arms at once 
 pained him and tended to assuage that unaccountable 
 hungry longing his heart so often felt. "What idiocy ! 
 What did he hunger for ? Was it love ? Surely not. 
 Had he not his wife ? And did he not love her ? With 
 his whole soul, he knew it. 
 
 He drew up at the door-step of his house and threw 
 the reins to his syce. As he walked across the hall he 
 sighed. In the short interval of time between riding 
 from the lines to his bungalow his spirits had dropped 
 from exultation to something like despair. Who could 
 like a man with a temperament so absurdly mercurial 
 as that ? 
 
 h 2 
 
100 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 He found his wife in the drawing-room, and, seating 
 himself beside her, took her hand in his and kissed it. 
 She looked surprised. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she asked, stretching herself 
 lazily and looking lovely as she did so. 
 
 " Lucy darling," he began, then stopped. 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " I've some good news." 
 
 " For me ? " 
 
 " N — no, not exactly ; about myself." 
 
 " Passed your examination ? " 
 
 She clasped her hands behind her head, and tilted 
 her knees so as to bring the book on her lap into a 
 position where she could read it. 
 
 " No, Lucy, I've not been up for my examination yet, 
 you know, and in all probability never shall now ; some- 
 thing better than that." 
 
 She lifted her eyes off her book as he stopped. 
 
 " I'm going to the front," he said shortly. 
 
 " When ? " she asked. 
 
 " Directly, I suspect ; " and then he told her all that 
 he had heard in the morning, but cut his recital rather 
 short, as he saw that her eyes wandered repeatedly in 
 the direction of her book. 
 
 " Oh, you're not gone yet," she said when he had 
 finished. 
 
 " But when I do go it will be at a moment's notice, 
 Lucy, and it is as well to be prepared. I was thinking 
 — I was thinking, dear, that it would be a good 
 opportunity for you and the boy to take a trip home 
 
 and recruit. Perhaps your mother " 
 
 " Nc thank you!" she .exclaimed hurriedly. "I 
 
nis chance. 10 L 
 
 have not the least desire to go home. I'd far rather 
 wait in the Hills till you come hack." 
 
 " Very well," he replied thoughtfully ; " only, Lucy, 
 a hill station is a dangerous place for a young woman 
 to spend her time in alone — a young married woman, I 
 mean. People are. very censorious out here, and don't 
 mind much what they say. You are a very, very 
 beautiful woman, my darling, and beautiful women 
 excite jealousy. From sheer ignorance you might get 
 yourself talked about in a way that, if you only knew, 
 would horrify you. Many and many an innocent 
 woman has had her character torn in shreds in the 
 Hills without her suspecting it in the least. Your 
 danger, my dearest girl, is your innocence, and it is 
 better for you to know at starting what to expect, that 
 is all. I can trust you, thank God, anywhere — any- 
 where ; but it is other people's honesty I distrust. 
 Never give them a handle to catch hold of, however 
 slight, or they'll use it to a certainty, and to good 
 purpose." 
 
 " Why, you silly man," she said, " I know all about 
 that — probably a good deal better than you do your- 
 self." 
 
 " If you knew — you do know, Lucy — how jealous I 
 am of your every look and word, you would not 
 laugh. It is absurd of me, I know; but the thought 
 of leaving you and the boy — our boy — alone, has — has 
 knocked me out of time," he concluded, lamely. " The 
 thought," he continued, throwing one arm round her 
 neck and bending his head down to look into her eyes, — 
 " the thought that I might some day come back, as 
 other and better men than I have done, to find my 
 
102 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 wife different to what I left her, is absurd, isn't it ? 
 Say so ; say it's absurd, Lucy ! " 
 
 " Of course it's absurd," she answered in rather a 
 frightened voice. 
 
 " It would break my heart. You'll never forget me, 
 or cease to think of me as having been kind to you 
 sometimes. You won't let the admiration of other — " 
 he had almost said " men," but substituted " people " 
 — " steal your love from me for a single moment, will 
 you ? And, Lucy, the little chap ; you'll look after 
 him well, well, won't you, while I'm away ? " 
 
 He caught one of her hands, and his own trembled 
 as he held it ; his mouth was twitching, his eyes flash- 
 ing that peculiar flame which always frightened her a 
 little. His compliments were gross, his manner almost 
 fierce, and certainly embarrassing ; besides, his insinua- 
 tions were insulting and made her angry, although she 
 was afraid to show anger. Certainly he was not 
 a pleasant sort of husband, and a man, after all, not so 
 easy to trifle with as she had always supposed. She 
 made her promises to him categorically and wished 
 that he would leave her alone 
 
 Presently he rose, and asked whether the boy was 
 asleep, then, renewing his admonitions of strict secrecy 
 concerning the promised appointment, left the room. 
 
 One other incident added to a thousand that had 
 gone before, proving the difficulty of getting his wife 
 to take more than a casual interest in his affairs, and 
 his own incapacity to impart enthusiasm or any other 
 emotion to a heart that he grieved to think beat 
 separately from, though not exactly out of unison with, 
 his own ; one more rasp at the link that bound them 
 
nis chance. 103 
 
 together ; one more tug at his faith ; one more twist 
 at the instrument of torture that he felt was slowly 
 crushing the vitality out of him ! Poor Jim was very 
 despondent as he walked across to the other side of the 
 house where the nursery was. His way lay through 
 his wife's bedroom, and a ball-dress lying on her bed 
 reminded him that there was another dance that night. 
 Why was it that he no longer seemed to care for all 
 these gaieties ? Time was when he had never seemed 
 to have had enough ; and not so very long ago, after 
 all — about the time when Uncle Ben had told him that 
 he might call himself lucky if, at forty, he could count 
 his friends on the fingers of one hand. He had 
 laughed then, for he had believed that the value of 
 those five would be as nothing compared to the worth 
 of one whom he was about to gather to his heart. He 
 was not forty yet, certainly, but where were those five 
 that Uncle Ben had talked about ? Uncle Ben himself 
 — one, yes ; his major — well, yes, two. The third ? Oh ! 
 what did it matter ? "Where was that one ? 
 
 Judith's honest face met him at the nursery door. 
 
 " Well, Judith, how's the young 'un ? " 
 
 " Beautiful, bless 'un," she replied. 
 
 He sat down on the floor beside his child and began 
 to make a series of extraordinary and unsoldierly 
 noises with his mouth for its amusement. The baby 
 was but a baby, and could only express his appreciation 
 in a wide-eyed stare ; but presently something like a 
 ripple of merriment passed across his pale little face, 
 and Captain James Vraille, K.A., grinned with delight. 
 
 "Lord love 'un," cried Judith, "blessed if he didn't 
 nearly smile." 
 
104 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 " I think he did quite," said Jim with animation ; 
 " never saw him do that before. How soon do babies 
 smile as a rule, Judith ? " 
 
 They discussed the question for some time, Jim 
 meanwhile making more noises and grimaces, until a 
 call from her mistress summoned Judith from the room. 
 
 He had not been able to tell Lucy of his major's ex- 
 pressed gratitude for his summer's work — and for the mo- 
 ment he had wanted to tell some one — but he soon for- 
 got his own wants and wishes while prattling to his baby. 
 
 In this way was Jim's egoism always checked, and 
 his confidences gradually stifled until they had almost 
 ceased to exist at all. 
 
 He played with his child until Judith came back and 
 said it was time for it to go to bed ; and then Jim went 
 away and had no one to play with, no one to talk to. 
 He busied himself in his room looking over his things and 
 putting on one side what he thought suitable for a field 
 kit, until Lucy called to him that it was time to dress for 
 dinner. They were to dine with the Commissioner — a 
 big gun, who could on no account be kept waiting — 
 and afterwards they were to go to the dance. The 
 dinner was of course an important matter; but the 
 dance was expected to be a very dismal affair — so many 
 men had left for the front. 
 
 Vraille had been cautioned on no account to miss 
 going, for trousers were at a premium. He, therefore, 
 found himself in course of time following his wife's 
 trailing skirts into the Commissioner's handsome 
 drawing-room. After shaking hands with their host 
 and hostess, Lucy sank gracefully into a chair, round 
 which half a dozen men immediately clustered, while 
 
HIS CHANGE. 105 
 
 Jim, in a corner, began to assume the various attitudes 
 affected by men during the mauvais quart-d'heure when 
 they have no one near them to talk to. 
 
 It was five minutes past the appointed dinner-time, 
 when a girl, whom he fancied he had met before some- 
 where, entered the room. While he was cudgelling his 
 brains to recall her name, the Commissioner's wife sailed 
 towards him, and, motioning with her fan, led him across 
 the room and murmured an introduction to the unknown. 
 He did not catch the name, although he listened with 
 all his ears, but it sounded like " Clare." 
 
 She wore pince-nez and held herself rather haughtily 
 erect. That was all he had time to notice before she 
 held out her hand to him, and in a low yet frank voice, 
 with just a suspicion of rippling laughter in it, said, 
 " This is a very pleasant surprise, Captain Vraille. 
 Not a week in the country and I meet an old face. 
 Eight thousand miles are nothing, after all." 
 
 Jim expressed his gratification as best he could, 
 wondering who on earth she was, and hoping he could 
 recollect (he felt he was on the point of doing so every 
 moment) before he should be obliged to ask her name. 
 The tailing off in strict order of precedence gave him 
 time to collect his memories, but he found himself 
 taking his seat next to his short-sighted companion as 
 much at sea a3 ever. Luckily he knew the ]ady on his 
 other side, and whispered the necessary question. 
 
 " Miss Dare — Miss Edith Dare — daughter of Colonel 
 Dare, whose sister, Mrs. Phelps, married Major Phelps 
 of the Eleventh Horse, you know — just arrived — 
 staying with ber aunt — father ordered to the front — 
 went through the day before yesterdav." 
 
106 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 Long before this full and accurate information (all 
 information about people in India is full and accurate) 
 had come to an end, the blood was surging through 
 Jim's veins, dyeing his cheeks and forehead crimson 
 and making him feel hot all over. He applied himself 
 to his soup, and half turned his back on the girl it was 
 his business to amuse and entertain. What should he 
 do ? What if she had noticed his horrible confusion ? 
 Why could he not comport himself calmly in a difficulty 
 like any other man ? He envied Mr. Book his calm 
 composure as he leant towards Lucy and smilingly 
 whispered something in her ear which seemed to please 
 her. He never had been calm and composed ; he was 
 an ass. 
 
 Still the matter had to be seen through somehow ; 
 and, after all, he had done nothing that he feared being 
 found out, for all India knew his story. The girl her- 
 self of course knew it, and had met him very graciously. 
 He finished his soup, drank a sip or two of champagne, 
 ate a morsel of bread, squared himself in his chair, 
 began a sentence, gulped it down again, coughed, and 
 at last got out — 
 
 " And how do you like India, Miss Dare ? " There 
 was. not another man sitting at that table, he thought 
 to himself, who would have put such a confoundedly 
 stupid question to a girl as that. 
 
 Miss Dare turned towards him, and in her low, pleasant 
 voice, intermingled with that rippling laughter, which 
 had at first struck him as sweet to hear but now sounded 
 like soothing music, answered his silly question with a 
 string of bright and interested replies. She recounted 
 a little anecdote of her voyage, laughingly lamented the 
 
HIS CHANCE. 107 
 
 heat, told him where she lived, supposed that people saw 
 a great deal of one another in India, said she intended 
 to make the very best of things and enjoy herself, and 
 smiled as if she thoroughly understood what enjoyment 
 meant. 
 
 Before dinner was half over, Jim found himself 
 talking almost as freely as he could talk to Judith 
 Foresight. Somehow they had got on the subject of 
 the baby, and just as he was saying, " He's a jolly little 
 beggar, you must come and see him," there was a pause 
 in the general conversation which rendered the remark 
 audible to the whole table. Mr. Book tittered into his 
 napkin, the Commissioner smiled, Lucy frowned across 
 the table, Miss Dare said boldly, " That I certainly 
 shall, Captain Yraille; I expect from what you 
 say he's a dear little fellow." But he had had 
 enough of babies and changed the conversation. It 
 would only be polite, he supposed, to ask after her father. 
 He did so, and discovered that the colonel was now a 
 widower with an only daughter on his hands, namely 
 Edith. " And then," explained Miss Dare, " his turn 
 came for India, and we had no sooner landed than he 
 was ordered to the front. He rushed off and left me 
 where I am. He was in a tremendous hurry, too; he 
 always is." 
 
 " He's quite right," said Jim, loyally, " to go on as 
 quickly as he can." 
 
 " To be sure," she replied ; " but he's impetuous, 
 much too impetuous. Sometimes," she said very slowly, 
 removing her pince-nez and looking her companion full 
 in the face with a pair of honest eyes that he noticed 
 were of hazel hue, — " sometimes he does things impetu- 
 
108 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 ously which he has very good reason to repent after- 
 wards." 
 
 He removed his eyes from hers and hent his head, 
 pretending to pick a cranio out of his lap. He under- 
 stood her perfectly; she, at least, had never doubted 
 him, and she meant him to know it. Had his thoughts 
 been put into words, they would have been something 
 like — " She can't help being the old fool's daughter, and 
 somehow she has made me feel uncommonly happy." 
 
 Then they talked about music and pictures, the 
 latest London play and the last novel, until the ladies 
 retired, and Jim was left alone to his reflections and 
 a subaltern's prattle about a polo pony. 
 
 In the drawing-room afterwards he had an oppor- 
 tunity of studying Miss Dare at a distance, though 
 none of talking to her. He had already. noticed that 
 she was rather a plain girl ; but she showed to more 
 advantage while standing than when seated, for she 
 had a slim, graceful figure, and her erect carriage 
 made her look taller than she was. " Not at all a 
 striking-looking girl," thought Jim, " though very far 
 from a bread-and-butter miss — English, honest, and 
 fearless ; not a bit like her father ; " and then he 
 thought no more about her, but watched his wife with 
 admiring eyes, taking mental notes of her superiority 
 over every other woman in the room in point of love- 
 liness and costume, and listening indolently to the idle 
 chatter that was going on around him. Lucy's face, 
 he noticed, was aglow with animation, and he felt a 
 little pained to think how seldom she wore that 
 becoming expression in his company. Some one asked 
 her to play — she did so ; Jim knew the tune well ; it 
 
niS CHANCE. 109 
 
 was one of the six that she practised for such occasions. 
 Then, to his surprise, Miss Dare sat down to the piano 
 and began to sing. She sang from memory, and 
 every one listened with unusual interest and attention. 
 Through Lucy's performance all the ladies had talked, 
 Jim noticed, as loudly as possible without actually 
 shouting ; now they were silent. Genuine applause 
 followed the song, and the Commissioner's wife had the 
 bad taste, as Lucy afterwards put it, to press for an 
 encore verse. The girl looked up and smiled, ran her 
 fingers up and down the keys, and suddenly burst into 
 a wild German song that Yraille had never heard 
 before. He did not know a word of German, but he 
 felt certain it was a love-song, and it seemed to him a 
 very sad one. There was a frantic misery about some 
 of the wailing notes of the refrain which followed each 
 verse that seemed to touch his inmost heart and melt 
 it in pity. He had never heard such singing or such a 
 song ; he could hardly bear to listen ; it made him 
 utterly miserable ; and, only a few minutes before, 
 this same young lady had been making him feel as gay 
 as that silly subaltern with his polo pony. More songs 
 followed, but he heard none of them ; and when, an 
 hour afterwards, he was seated beside his wife, driving 
 to the dance, he still heard those wild sad notes of 
 misery in the trot of his horse's hoofs upon the roadway. 
 
 " Well," said his wife, giving him a push with the 
 end of her fan ; " we're very thoughtful to-night. 
 Miss Dare, eh ? Never tell me again that you are not 
 a flirt." 
 
 " I ! " exclaimed poor Jim, who had no more notion 
 of flirting than of flying. 
 
110 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 " Yes, you, injured innocence ; and a pretty figure 
 you cut at table. She was laughing at you, Jim, and 
 trying her best to make you appear silly. She suc- 
 ceeded, too." 
 
 " Well, perhaps so, Lucy ; and what then ? She has 
 not gained much." 
 
 But his wife had thrown fresh light on his under- 
 standing; he saw the table laughing at him once 
 again, and blushed to himself in the dark to think that 
 he had been so easily led into making an ass of himself. 
 
 " She's old Dare's daughter," he said ; " the man 
 that tried me, you remember." 
 
 " Naturally she owes you a grudge. Every one 
 knows that." 
 
 " Do you think she was trying dodges on me, 
 then?" 
 
 " Of course I do." 
 
 " Why r How ? " 
 
 Seasons are not so easy to give as assertions to 
 make, and Lucy changed the subject with — 
 
 " How should I know ? Ask her." 
 
 All the harmony of the little German song was gone, 
 and now the rattle of the horse's hoofs only beat out 
 discords. 
 
 Considering the paucity of men, the dance was a 
 great success. The band played its merriest, the 
 waltzers twirled, partners perspired, the fun was at its 
 height. Not a hundred miles away, fathers and 
 brothers, husbands and sons, were toiling along the 
 westward roads to glory or dishonour, disease or death ; 
 but what mattered that ? In India of all places it 
 behoves one to be merry while one can. 
 
nis CHANCE. Ill 
 
 Lucy waltzed divinely, and never looked hot, what- 
 ever she nimht feel. She did not suffer either from 
 prickly heat, which, gave her an immense advantage 
 over the majority of her sex, for she could wear her 
 dresses low without fear of her shoulders hecoming 
 disfigured with a rash during the exercise. Others, 
 for the most part, were not so fortunate. Mr. Rook, 
 too, always looked sleek and cool, whatever the mercury 
 might register. His close black hair never ruffled, his 
 linen never got limp ; he was a charming partner in 
 every way, and when not actually dancing, could pay 
 the prettiest compliments with an easy grace that 
 gave them all the air of actual sincerity. Mr. Rook 
 was a rising man, with influence, and a thorough 
 gentleman, with two thousand rupees a month, so 
 mothers liked to see their daughters dancing with him ; 
 but such is the perversity of disinterested human 
 nature, he preferred dancing with Lucy. Lucy's 
 popularity with her sex was not proportionate to the 
 number of times he did so in an evening, and on this 
 particular evening was rapidly on the decline. 
 
 It was hot in the rooms, and only natural that they 
 should take a stroll in the grounds. Jim saw the 
 curtains fall behind the retreating pair. 
 
 "Who is that beautiful woman just gone out?" a 
 voice behind him asked. 
 
 "No other than Lovely Loo, I suspect," another 
 answered. 
 
 He turned sharply, and beheld two unknown faces. 
 The place was full of unknown faces in those busy 
 times. 
 
 Was she as well known as that ? Did people dare 
 
112 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 to call her by an offensive nickname? Was the 
 reputation of her beauty bandied about from mouth to 
 mouth like that of an actress at home ? It was 
 horrible. He could have struck the man. He would 
 take her home, away from the reach of insult. 
 
 " Lucy, Lucy," he whispered, when he had found 
 her after a search through the grounds, " I want to 
 speak to you — just a minute." 
 
 She rose from her seat with an apology to her part- 
 ner, and followed him a few steps. 
 
 " Come home," he said, catching at her hand, " come 
 home, dearest ; we have had enough of this. It is 
 intolerably weary work ; you must be tired." 
 
 " Come home ? " she repeated. " When the night 
 has hardly begun ? Why, I am enjoying myself 
 immensely, and I'm not one bit tired. You mean you 
 are bored. Come, don't be selfish just this once, 
 there's a dear." 
 
 " All right," he said, and, flinging her hand from 
 him, turned his back upon her and walked away. 
 
 " You don't look as if you were enjoying yourself as 
 you should," said a musical voice in his ear, as he stood 
 inside the room again, wearily watching the dancing. 
 
 " I'm not, Miss Dare, and that's the truth ; I hate 
 and loathe these masquerades— these hollow shams of 
 amusement — these Indian hotbeds of insult and scandal. 
 You'll find it all out for yourself some day. I'd sooner 
 see paint than smiles on some women's faces." 
 
 " Good gracious ! " said the girl, edging away from 
 him. 
 
 Had he been enjoying his supper ? Had her father 
 been right in his accusations, after all ? 
 
HIS CHANGE. 113 
 
 " Don't think I'm mad," he said, smiling grimly, 
 and noticing her action; "I'm not mad usually, but 
 mad, perhaps, just now. Sometimes the unspoken lies 
 of this country of so-called romance are borne in 
 upon me very strongly, that's all. Why did you come 
 here ? What made your father subject you to a life in 
 India ? Has he ever soldiered here before ? " 
 
 The question led to explanation, the explanation to 
 a set of Lancers, the set of Lancers to no clearer mutual 
 understanding. 
 
 He did not enjoy his evening, but Lucy did. 
 
 " You look lovelier and lovelier every time I see 
 you," murmured her partner. 
 
 The delicacy of the compliment sent a thrill of 
 pleasure through her. 
 
 " Don't be so stupid," she said deprecatingly. 
 
 "Hot weathers," he pursued, in smooth, even tones, 
 "have no effect upon you, positively. How do you 
 manage it? Give me your receipt, and I'll make my 
 fortune." 
 
 She laughed, and said she had none. 
 
 " Of course not ; one can see that with half an eye. ■ 
 Do you never feel afraid, Mrs. Yraille, of all the bitter 
 enemies you have made in this place ? " 
 
 " Enemies ! No ; what enemies ? Why should I ? " 
 
 " Women hate you, my dear lady ; and there are lots 
 of women here, you know." 
 
 " Hate me, do they ? " 
 
 This was gratifying to the last degree. 
 
 " If you want to make friends, Miss Aphrodite, be 
 stupid ; if you want to keep them, be ugly, or at any 
 rate plain." 
 
 VOL. I. i 
 
114 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 She had never heard of Aphrodite, but she felt that 
 the allusion was well meant, and smiled. 
 " But I'm not stupid," she said. 
 
 " Precisely," he replied, dryly. " Now look here, 
 dear Lucy — Mrs. Yraille, I mean ; I beg pardon — I 
 want you to manage something cleverly." 
 Lucy looked as bright as possible. 
 
 " I am thinking of giving a little entertainment in 
 my bungalow — ^dinner, dance, supper, all premeditated 
 impromptu " — he paused to give his little shaft of wit 
 time to strike her understanding ; but, seeing that it 
 had missed its mark, continued — " but I want it choice ; 
 by choice I mean chosen, and very carefully chosen — 
 the wheat winnowed from the chaff." 
 
 " Ye — es, quite so," said Lucy, dubiously. 
 
 " All unnecessary superfluity removed." 
 
 She was slow to take any hint, and he saw that 
 nothing but plain-speaking would serve. 
 
 " No dull people, you know ; no awkward chaperons, 
 no tiresome fathers and husbands." 
 
 She would be delighted. "When was it to be ? 
 
 About a fortnight or three weeks hence. 
 
 " Oh, easy enough ! " she exclaimed. " Jim will 
 have gone by then." 
 
 " Gone ? Where to ? " 
 
 " To the front. He's been offered an appointment 
 under General ; oh ! but I forgot." 
 
 A low, pensive whistle broke from Mr. Rook's lips. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " she asked. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing ; I had thought as much all 
 along, that's all. But tell me the particulars ; it is 
 interesting, this." 
 
SIB CHANCE. 115 
 
 She told him all she could remember, proud to let 
 him see how clever she could be when she chose. 
 
 " But be sure," she said, " you don't mention it to a 
 soul. It's a dead secret at present, though you seemed 
 to have guessed it." 
 
 " Certainly not," said Mr. Rook, to whom the in- 
 formation came as an utter surprise. 
 
 No one, to hear his answer, would have supposed that 
 the matter was important to him ; and ho one, to look 
 at him, would have imagined that honest Lucy had 
 ruined her husband's chance for ever. 
 
116 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GOOD-BYE. 
 
 The Rooks are an ancient and honourable family. 
 They are, too, a clever race, and, without exception, 
 popular, it being a sort of etiquette among them always 
 to live on the best terms possible with their neighbours, 
 never to make unnecessary enemies, and at the Fame 
 time to push themselves well to the front. They 
 deserve to get on ; and they do ! 
 
 Of Lord Chesscastle's numerous younger sons, two 
 had found their way to India. The Honourable Percy 
 of the Guards filled a dignified position on the Vice- 
 regal Staff, while the Honourable Herbert, as we have 
 seen, was a marked man in the Civil Service. But 
 Percy Rook, as the family representative of the army, 
 had a few decorations, and, if possible, a V.C. to get, 
 before he could attempt to emulate the distinguished 
 roles played by his military forefathers ; Herbert had 
 yet to bring himself into prominent notice on a special 
 mission. The family name was as good as ever, but 
 could not be lived on, and the family credit in more 
 senses than one was a little on the wane. The war 
 offered golden opportunities to be snapped up, and the 
 Rooks were on the look-out. 
 
 The brothers bore one another no extraordinary 
 affection ; but as they could slide up their respective 
 scales in harmonic progression without interfering with 
 
GOOD-BYE. 117 
 
 one another's interests, if either saw a fit opportunity 
 of doing the other a good turn, he invariably seized it, 
 keeping a debtor and creditor account of benefits 
 received and bestowed, and making a careful mental 
 note of the balance. 
 
 Naturally enough, Percy pined for a post that would 
 offer the best opportunities of advancement and dis- 
 tinction with the least possible inaction and discomfort 
 between whiles ; and Herbert knew that his brother had 
 set his heart on obtaining the vacant billet now being 
 offered to this outsider Vraille. Mr. Kook, the civilian, 
 understood diplomacy if he understood anything, and, 
 better still, thoroughly understood the character of the 
 general with whom the appointment rested. 
 
 An hour's cogitation evolved two diplomatic notes 
 — one to his brother, the other to a wire-puller of no 
 mean order, whom he knew tolerably well, and had 
 once served to good purpose. He posted these notes, 
 smiled complacently, and went to bed. The next day 
 he told every one he met of the good fortune about to 
 befall his friend Jimmy Vraille. 
 
 Herbert Rook was undoubtedly the most desirable 
 acquaintance within a radius of five or six hundred 
 miles. Every one liked him ; it was impossible to help 
 it ; he had a sweet, soothing way of saying that it was 
 hut in the sun or cool under the punkah, which at once 
 suggested confidence and solicited sympathy, and he 
 always knew the latest news sooner than any one else. 
 He played a good rubber of whist, and to watch him at 
 lawn-tennis was an education ; he was a divine waltzer, 
 an excellent horseman, and a most trustworthy 
 organiser of dinner-parties, picnics, tournaments, or 
 
118 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 concerts ; lie thoroughly understood menus and ball 
 programmes ; and, in fact, for dexterity and tact in 
 bringing the right people together at the right times 
 and places, and in the right order — an all-important 
 i consideration — as well as for amusing them when he 
 got them there, he had not his equal in all India. He 
 could turn a verse for an album, sing an Italian love- 
 song, playing his own accompaniment, paint a scene 
 for the theatre, or take a minor part which no one 
 wished to fill, with a grace and good-nature that made 
 him beloved of all who knew hitn. 
 
 It was only natural that when Lucy found that her 
 wit and beauty attracted an undue share of his atten- 
 tion, and saw other women in the ball-room or on the 
 Mall frowning at her, she felt constrained to make the 
 very best of her opportunities, and cement with her 
 brightest smiles the intimacy that was springing up 
 apace between them every clay. It was delightful to sit 
 out in the cool night air, between or even during the 
 dances, and listen to his caressing voice, while in the 
 mellow light of Chinese lanterns and fairy lamps she 
 could watch the flash of jealous eyes less beautiful than 
 her own. It was charming ; and it was still more 
 charming when, beyond the reach of captious* ears, he 
 would occasionally become bold, and burst forth into 
 fearless rhapsodies on her attainments and her charms. 
 He put things in a way that made them positively 
 mpossible to resent ; he understood women and how to 
 charm them. He never talked about himself; he 
 talked about her — that was the whole secret. 
 
 Jim talked about absurd things — ethics and ideals, 
 fundamental principles and convictions, and a number 
 
GOOD-BYE. 119 
 
 of other themes equally impossible to comprehend, and 
 equally dull. Mr. Eooke was never dull; he understood 
 life — the real every-day life of positive enjoyment in esse 
 and possible enchantment in posse ; he understood men 
 and manners and realities, and how to make the best of 
 them, too ; he never droned out speculations on im- 
 possibilities, or looked upon the seamy side of things. 
 
 This little entertainment of his, for example, got up, 
 he told her, especially on her own account, and being 
 put off cle die in diem (though her meditation was not 
 in Latin) until she should fix a day most convenient 
 for herself, was tempting in the extreme and occupied 
 her thoughts. She must manage it somehow; but 
 there were difficulties. For one thing she would be 
 obliged to have a new dress for the occasion, and, though 
 ordered, the date of its completion was still uncertain. 
 But she had not as yet mentioned the subject to Jim. 
 He might make some ridiculous objection which would 
 •jive rise to a little scene ; she hated little scenes, and 
 hoped by procrastination to avoid the necessity of forcing 
 one into existence : the time taken by Government 
 officials in making up their minds was monstrous. 
 
 At last Mr. Eook could wait no longer, and himself 
 fixed the date and issued his invitations — verbally. She 
 wanted to go, but kept putting off the clay for obtaining 
 Jim's sanction. People were beginning to talk of his 
 appointment; it was extraordinary how things got 
 about. She heard some one allude to it on the Mall ; 
 then again at the Gymkhana the subject had been 
 mentioned in her hearing. A young subaltern — rather 
 a friend of hers — named Hicks, congratulated her, and 
 said that he was " dead nuts " on her husband's 
 
120 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 charger Mustapha, and, "if there was to be a deal, 
 meant to cut in." 
 
 It certainly was getting about ; still, as Jim was 
 evidently ignorant of the fact that he was a subject of 
 conversation, not to say interest, for the time being, 
 she held, her tongue like a wise woman. He, mean- 
 while, was making every preparation for immediate 
 departure, busying himself all day long with one thing 
 and another, and looking positively brisk and cheerful. 
 
 " There," he said to her one evening just before 
 starting for the theatre, " I'm ready now to be off at a 
 moment's notice." 
 
 " And quite glad to leave me all alone." 
 
 His face fell. 
 
 " I'm very sorry to leave you," he said, gravely, 
 " more sorry than I can tell you." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " was her ironical reply. 
 
 " Not all the telling in the world, I fear, would make 
 you believe me, Lucy." 
 
 She noticed the bitterness in his tone, and told him 
 not to be cross and spoil her evening. 
 
 " But," he continued rather wearily, " at least you 
 will appreciate the arrangements I have made for you 
 while I am away." Then he told her. She was to live 
 on where she was until the commencement of the hot 
 weather, when she would proceed to the Hills. He had 
 all his plans — houses, disposal of furniture, domestic 
 arrangements, and the very journeys to and fro — cut 
 and dried, it seemed. She was quite satisfied, and 
 much interested, as he had said she would be. 
 
 They went to the theatre, and Lucy thoroughly 
 enjoyed her evening after all. 
 
GOOD-BYE. 121 
 
 The news of Jim's possible selection for the vacaut 
 appointment was by this time common property, and 
 when some one at last congratulated him personally on 
 his luck he looked scared. Lucy, when he asked her 
 if she had repeated to any one what he had told her, 
 at first stoutly maintained her innocence, for Jim put 
 his questions to her, as she affirmed, with such brutal 
 ferocity that he frightened her ; but afterwards, when 
 he had calmed down a little and could listen to reason, 
 she admitted having partially alluded to the possibility 
 of his filling the post, knowing full well that in doing 
 so there could not, of course, be the slightest atom of 
 harm. Jim sighed, and said he hoped it would be all 
 right. 
 
 He went on hoping until he saw the appointment of 
 Captain the Honourable Percy Book of the Body-guard 
 in the " Gazette." 
 
 " It's no good, Lucy," he groaned, " trying for any- 
 thing in the service without interest ; it's no good 
 working or hoping ; you might as well try to swim 
 without arms — you can keep your head above water, 
 but you can't get on an inch. I'm sorry you said any- 
 thing about it, as it so happens, because it has made 
 us both look more or less foolish. But that did not 
 lose me my chance, and I'm not so unjust or so stupid 
 as to suppose it did ; it was my want of interest, for 
 one thing, and the star I was born under, for another. 
 It's a pity, but let us try to forget all about it." 
 
 He did his best to forget all about it ; but one day 
 his Major jogged his memory most unpleasantly. 
 
 " The thing got about somehow," he said to his 
 Captain, tartly ; " it got to General 's ears that 
 
122 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 you had been selected on my recommendation and 
 authority. All the good you've done by tattling, when 
 I "warned you not to, is to have lost a capital billet for 
 yourself and get me a nasty snub. I don't like 
 snubs." 
 
 Jim took his wigging silently. What could he say ? 
 He had committed an indiscretion and knew it. His 
 Major would not be likely to trust him very implicitly 
 for the future — and Lucy ? Well, she had meant no 
 harm, and, as he had exonerated her once, it would be 
 ungenerous and of little use to raise the question again ; 
 besides, he did not believe that a stray hint could 
 possibly have done the whole mischief, even in India. 
 No, it was his luck ! 
 
 In due course Captain the Honourable Percy Eook, 
 whose departure was duly chronicled in the daily 
 papers as a subject of universal regret to Simla and 
 general congratulation to the Field Force, rolled down 
 the Himylayan Hills to take up his new duties on 
 the Frontier. Captain James Vraille, occasionally 
 sympathised with, took to his books again, and opened 
 the " Baital Pachchisi " at the place where he had left 
 off. 
 
 One man's gain is another's loss in any game, be it 
 skittles, billiards, stocks, or war. The best go to the 
 front, the weak to the wall, the one difficulty being to 
 decide at the outset who are the best — a difficulty that 
 can only be overcome by individual comparison. 
 Comparison is arrived at by competition ; competition 
 is a great institution, but unfortunately James 
 Vraille was no good at competition. 
 
 " I don't wish to complain," he said to his wife one 
 
GOOD-BYE. 123 
 
 night when they happened to be at home alone 
 together; "and a man who grumbles about his luck is 
 usually a knock-kneed sort of chap, but it does seem 
 hard sometimes that one thing after another should 
 fail me. I suppose I'm an example of my own rule, 
 and am morally weak. I hate failure," he exclaimed — 
 this was only a few days after his resolution to forget 
 his disappointment—" and to hate anything is a proof 
 of weakness. Eeally strong men don't hate, or if they 
 do, they keep their hatred under control, and don't 
 talk about it. The man I should like to be is the 
 calm, cool, quiet man who manages to get on without 
 noise : the less noise a steam-eugine makes, the 
 quicker it goes ; it is only at starting and pulling up 
 that it puffs and blows ; and " 
 
 " Oh ! but I've often heard an engine make a lot of 
 noise going quick — indeed I have," said Lucy ; 
 " whistle, for instance." 
 
 " There may be anguish in the whistle," he muttered 
 to himself, " but not hatred." 
 
 " I don't believe you know anything about engines, 
 as a matter of fact." 
 
 She rose out of her chair, and, stretching her shapely 
 arms above her head, yawned, but yawned enchantingly 
 as an animate statue of a weary Yenus might yawn. 
 
 " Oh, I'm so tired," she said. " I've been up three 
 nights running, you know, and I'm going to bed. 
 Good night, dear." 
 
 She patted his grey head as she passed him and leit 
 the room. 
 
 There is something wrong about the man whose 
 principal companions are his thoughts. Jim was very 
 
124 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 often left alone with his thoughts, and sometimes he 
 felt that if he could only give them expression instead 
 of always bottling them up he would feel better, 
 morally and physically. But the more he thought 
 the less he wished to talk ; and it seemed, too, that he 
 was always thinking; the habit was growing on him 
 apace — a pernicious habit, but one he found it 
 impossible to throw off. A gape, a momentary 
 digression on Lucy's part, was quite enough to dispel 
 his ideas and banish all hope of fixing her interest. 
 It was absurd of him to be so sensitive, and he 
 struggled hard against his infirmity. But it was no 
 good, his efforts were invariably failures ; and little by 
 little he felt that he was becoming more and more 
 silent, more and more taciturn, more and more socially 
 objectionable. •■ 
 
 He often reviewed bis past life, and wondered 
 whether the gaiety of his fastest days had in reality 
 been forced — whether the laughter and noise and fun of 
 those times had ever actually formed part of his life. 
 The old feeling that he had once tried to explain to 
 Lucy, of living within himself a life different to what 
 others saw, was growing on him rapidly. He was 
 never himself now ; he was always acting a part — 
 trying to keep up appearances which he knew were 
 false. Those subjects that really interested him were 
 never mentioned at home, while things he knew 
 nothing about were eagerly discussed by Lucy and her 
 friends. But now and then, in the mess, and occasion- 
 ally at the Club, he would launch out into a 
 dissertation or join warmly in an argument and talk 
 until he felt ashamed of his volubility. 
 
GOODBYE. 125 
 
 His weekly letter ro Uncle Ben was his safety-valve ; 
 in these letters he said what he thought, and said it 
 freely ; it was like talking to him, and Uncle Ben had 
 always been a sympathetic listener. His uncle wrote 
 hack and told him that " over-much self-examination 
 was the bane of existence," and that " healthy com- 
 mingling with fellow-creatures and a just appreciation 
 of their pleasures was the only source of contentment 
 for the young." " Eemember," he had said in his last 
 letter, " that you have your life to live, and that it 
 lasts at most a few score years. Old age lives in the 
 past. If you have no pleasant past to look back upon, 
 your old age will be miserable indeed ; and, after all, 
 the making of one's pleasures and pains greatly rests 
 with oneself. It is your duty to be as happy as you 
 can, that your happiness may be imparted to others. 
 Introspection is a subtle form of selfishness, and no 
 selfishness can lead to happiness." 
 
 Why had he written like this ? No letter of his own, 
 he felt sure, had supplied the text for such a sermon. 
 True ; but the tone of them all for the past two years 
 had led up to it. This Jim did not know. 
 
 It was all very well, he thought, and the truth of it 
 was as clear as crystal ; but, despite his efforts to take 
 the old gentleman's advice and mould his conduct on 
 these axioms, he failed. As he grew older — and he 
 seemed to have grown ten years older in two — the more 
 important the world as a social problem seemed to him, 
 and the less he understood it. Things that he had 
 once fancied beautiful had turned out to be common- 
 place, pleasures were but penances, and hopes highways 
 to disappointment. But others did not preach these 
 
126 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 doctrines ; others saw gold where he saw only tinsel ; 
 others found no difficulties in their paths, and laughed 
 at him when he mistook amusement for duty. The 
 world was as bright as ever if he would but recognise 
 the fact ; it was his own horn-eyed stupidity that 
 blinded him. The fault lay with himself. He was a 
 weak, puling dreamer, without a grain of manly common 
 sense about him. " Come, shake yourself," he said out 
 loud ; " be as others are ; look your neighbour boldly 
 in the face, you are as good as he. Assert yourself; you 
 have never done anything to be ashamed of." He 
 actually got up and shook himself, as if in this way he 
 could shake off yesterday's frowns. He set his face into 
 a smile and looked at it in a glass. It looked positively 
 idiotic. " Oh, come," he said, " you're not quite so bad 
 as that as a general rule, I hope ; the expression doesn't 
 become you ; try another." He did, and it was worse 
 than the first, so he gave up practising pleasantry and 
 threw himself into his chair again. His eyes roamed 
 round the room and he noticed all the pretty knick- 
 knacks ; how tasteful it all was ! but his expression did 
 not change. He looked out of the open door into the 
 night, and saw in the far distance Lucy Flight holding 
 out her lovely arms to him in the little drawing-room 
 at Cabstand Square, and his eyes dilated with pleasure 
 at the remembrance of those delightful times. " Oh, 
 it's all changed now," he groaned, " and I have only 
 myself to blame." He picked up the book she had been 
 reading and glanced his eye over a few pages — love, 
 passion, revenge, poetic jutsice. She had marked her 
 place with a ball programme, and in sheer indolence he 
 opened that. The initials " H.E." were very prominently 
 
GOOD-BYE. 127 
 
 conspicuous, and the lines about his mouth and eyes 
 deepened as he replaced the card and laid the book 
 aside. His expression now, had he glanced again in 
 the glass, would hardly have pleased him. 
 
 A low cry came wailing through the silence of the 
 house, followed by the notes of a crooning lullaby, and 
 all was still again. The lines on his face as he listened 
 faded and died out one by one, a smile played about the 
 corners of his mouth, a soft light kindled in his eyes, 
 which he half closed as if experiencing some pleasant 
 sensation. He sunk his head upon his hand and 
 thought. The little cry had turned the whole current 
 of his thoughts. How still the house was ; how silent 
 the night ; what a lonely man he felt himself to be ; 
 and yet, no, not quite alone. 
 
 A hurrying footstep pattered in the verandah ; a pair 
 of shoes were shuffled off ; his bearer handed him a 
 telegram. 
 
 As he had said, if he were ordered to the front at all, 
 it would be at a moment's notice. The Transport Service 
 was a poor exchange for service on the persooal staff of 
 a distinguished general, but better than nothing. The 
 opportunity he had longed for had come at last. The 
 order lay in his hand. In four-and-twenty hours he 
 would be gone. 
 
 He stole on tip-toe into his wife's room. The punkah 
 waved noiselessly above her bed ; she slept soundly ; 
 her beautiful hair streamed over the pillow, her lovely 
 head rested on one rounded arm, the other hanging 
 over the* side of the bed, a model of perfect symmetry 
 and unconscious grace. It was her left arm, and in the 
 soft light of the room he could see the glimmer of her 
 
128 JAMES VRA1LLE. 
 
 wedding-ring. He knelt beside the listless hand and 
 reverently kissed it. Who knows what was passing 
 through his mind as he knelt there ? Who knows but 
 that a prayer breathed with all the fervour of faith rose 
 to lips unaccustomed to prayer, and stole away through 
 the dark night, silently ascending to the realms where 
 prayers are heard, to be granted or left unanswered ? 
 
 He sat up late arranging his papers and accounts, 
 and setting his affairs in order. He put away his 
 books — lesson books, as Lucy called them — upon a 
 shelf, and wondered when they would be taken down 
 again, and whether he would ever now pass his 
 examination. 
 
 At last he went to bed and slept, dreaming that he 
 was returning from the war a Field Marshal, with a 
 brilliant staff and a gay escort all shouting his praises. 
 The people had all turned out to meet him, and among 
 them he looked for Lucy, but for a long time in vain. 
 At last he saw her standing aloof by herself. He 
 rushed to meet her, but she turned and fled ; he tried 
 to follow, but tripped and fell heavily. He awoke \o 
 find his bearer pulling his big toe and telling him that 
 the barber had come to shave him. 
 
 The day had begun — the last day of anxious inactivity 
 and restless desire. Before it had closed he would be 
 gone. He could scarcely believe it ; Lucy could 
 scarcely believe it ; it was so very sudden and unex- 
 pected, she said ; but how lucky he was to be chosen out 
 of so many applicants ! 
 
 It was a busy day, but amid all the hurry and bustle 
 of preparation for her husband's departure, Lucy found 
 time to scribble off a little note to Mr. Rook, saying 
 
GOOD-BYE. 129 
 
 that though she might be late, she would certainly put 
 in an appearance at his party that evening. 
 
 Jim meanwhile was making his final arrangements 
 in the lines. 
 
 " I wish you luck," his Major said, shaking him 
 warmly by the hand, "and we shall look forward to 
 having you back with us again soon. You have learnt 
 a great deal since I gave you that little piece of advice 
 about expediency ; but it's as good now as it was then. 
 Remember expediency when you have forgotten every- 
 thing else ; and, by the way, it is not always 
 expedient to tell one's wife everything one hears." 
 
 Jim understood this to mean that the worthy Major 
 had quite forgiven him his unfortunate indiscretion, 
 and trotted homewards happy on that account. On the 
 way he met young Hicks, the happy possessor of many 
 polo ponies and two racehorses. 
 
 "I say, Vraille," he shouted, "you're off to-night 
 they tell me ; is that so ? " 
 
 Yes it was so. 
 
 ' " Look here, I'll give you my bay country-bred, 
 Peter, and a thousand for Mustapha. You can't take a 
 good horse up to that beastly country, where he'll have 
 nothing to eat but thatch ; if you do, you'll knock him 
 to bits and lose a pot over him. Come, Peter and a 
 thousand ! Is it on ? I can send him round at once — 
 and the cheque," he added, persuasively. 
 
 " Much obliged for the offer," said Jim, " but 
 Mustapha is not for sale ; " and he trotted on. 
 
 " Not I, old boy," he said when he was out of ear- 
 shot, leaning forward and patting his horse's neck ; 
 " you've carried me too often and to j vv ell. Never fear, 
 
 VOL. i. K 
 
130 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 I would not part with you for twice as much and twenty 
 Peters into the bargain ! Peter, indeed — the fiddle- 
 headed camel ! I'm not the rich man by half that I was 
 when I bought you, but rich enough to keep you, any 
 way." 
 
 He had balanced his accounts the night before, and 
 found that, by settling up in all directions, he had just 
 enough in the place for personal expenses without 
 troubling his agents, which he was anxious not to do. 
 But bills, when settling-up day really comes, seem to 
 breed and multiply ; a sheaf of them awaited settlement 
 on his writing-table and made a large difference in his 
 balance. They were mostly for things he had never seen 
 or heard of, but supposed were necessary for household 
 purposes of which he was ignorant, and he paid them 
 cheerfully enough ; he wished only to get to the end of 
 his business and have leisure to talk to Lucy. When 
 all at last seemed settled, his bearer told him that the 
 Schroff was in the verandah and wished to see the Sahib. 
 
 The Schroff was admitted. 
 
 It was a small matter, only two thousand five 
 hundred rupees lent at odd times to her Highness the 
 Mem-Sahib — see the notes of hand. The Schroff was 
 a poor man, and grieved to trouble his Highness, but 
 perhaps the Sahib would see fit to settle for her 
 Highness before he went forth to fight the Afghan : 
 the land was full of disease and his Highness might 
 not return ; in which case 
 
 Two thousand five hundred rupees ! It was not the 
 money — that was nothing in comparison — it was the 
 want of confidence that for a moment made him hang 
 his head before the cringing Schroff. If she had only 
 
GOOD-BYE. 131 
 
 applied to him, how gladly would he have given her 
 twice the amount rather than allow her to run into 
 debt with such a man. 
 
 " Two thousand five hundred," he said, looking up ; 
 " oh, yes, I know all about that. Here's a cheque for 
 five hundred and a ' chit ' for a thousand. The other 
 thousand I'll give you this evening if you'll call again, 
 say in a couple of hours." 
 
 Mustapha was well known and required no veterinary 
 certificate. A note was soon written, and the order 
 soon given to take the horse round to Hicks Sahib's 
 bungalow and bring back Peter. Jim had not time, he 
 told himself, to go into the stable and pat his horse's 
 neck ; it was quite unnecessary to pat a horse's neck 
 before selling him. He had done so that very morning 
 when he had told him that they would go to the front 
 together whatever happened ; he could not go and tell 
 him now that he was to be sold. The poor brute's eye 
 would perhaps reproach him for breaking his word. 
 No ! he would watch him being led out of the compound 
 instead. 
 
 " Why, Jim," cried Lucy, rushing into the room in a 
 hurry, " there is Mustapha going off already ; surely it's 
 too soon." 
 
 " Mustapha is going for good, Lucy. I sold him — 
 this morning." The hours were too precious to be 
 wasted in useless explanation, so he said " this 
 morning." 
 
 " Oh, I am sorry ! " she exclaimed heartily ; " he 
 was such a beautiful horse ! " 
 
 " Lucy," he said, approaching her and throwing his 
 arm round her waist, " the Schroff says you owe him a 
 
 k 2 
 
132 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 little money " — the colour left her cheek and her hand 
 trembled — " I have paid him nearly all of it and have 
 told him to come to me for the rest. Don't, Lucy 
 dear, borrow money from natives ; you have no idea of 
 the amount of trouble it leads to. Come to me if you 
 want anything." 
 
 " Yes," she said penitently ; and he kissed her. 
 
 " And, while I am away, think of me as if I were 
 here — here by your side as I am now. In spirit, Lucy, 
 I shall always be with you, always thinking of you. 
 There is nothing —nothing in the wide world I would 
 not do for you if you will only trust me. Trust me 
 as you would yourself ; I am part of you ; we are one, 
 dear, however many miles may separate us." 
 
 He paused, and she fidgeted in her chair; he 
 frightened her. 
 
 " I am afraid, Lucy," he began again, " that some- 
 times we have not quite understood one another ; I am 
 afraid that I have not been gentle to you, as a man — 
 still more a husband — should always be to the woman 
 he loves." 
 
 " Oh, don't talk like that," she broke in, beginning 
 to cry — he had touched her true self, he thought, and 
 a gleam of joy shot through his heart to see her tears 
 — " don't talk like that, I can't bear it ; you have 
 always been good to me, indeed you have." 
 
 " No, my darling, I have not ; I have not tried to 
 enter into your daily interests and amusements as I 
 should. I feel now that we have not made the most of 
 our lives — our lives together, I mean. But don't think 
 harshly of me for that while I am away. Don't look 
 back except to forgive ; look forward to my coming. 
 
GOOD-BYE. 133 
 
 I have been brusque and rude at times ; I am 
 impetuous and then morose ; forgive these things, and 
 only try to remember that I love you with my whole, 
 whole heart ! " 
 
 He held her hand, and, as if to seal a sort of solemn 
 promise between them, raised it to his lips and 
 kissed it. " Come," he said, " let us go and see our 
 boy together." 
 
 Hand in hand they crossed the room. At the door 
 he turned, and, flinging his arms round her, kissed her 
 passionately, and whispered in her ear, " Eemember, 
 remember what we have been saying when I'm away." 
 
 In the nursery Jim went through his accustomed 
 performance of face-making, arid the baby crowed. 
 After a time Lucy was called away to see to a parcel 
 — a dress — that had just come home, and he and Judith 
 discussed the child's health. 
 
 " He's such a jolly little chap," said Jim. 
 
 " Bless 'un, yes," said Judith. 
 
 " And it would be an awful pity if he got ill again." 
 
 " He won't get ill, Lord love 'un ! " 
 
 "You'll see to that?" 
 
 " To be sure I will, sir !" said Judith, vehemently. 
 
 " You'll look after him, and never let him out of 
 your sight, except, of course, when he is with his 
 mother ? " 
 
 " Make your mind quite easy there, sir." 
 
 " And, Judith, you'll not think of leaving us till I 
 get back ? " He tried his utmost to put the question 
 unconcernedly, and even followed it up with a whistle 
 for the baby's edification ; but his voice trembled a 
 little, and the whistle broke in the middle. 
 
134 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 " I'll not leave you, sir — ever," she replied ; " least- 
 ways till I'm told." 
 
 He sighed a sigh which seemed to be of relief, and 
 in his usual brusque way thrust the child into her arms 
 and strode out of the room. 
 
 Dinner that night was a silent, melancholy meal, and 
 after dinner there was but little time for conversation. 
 
 The last trunk had been packed, the last order given, 
 the last suggestion made ; the UJcJca- gharri was at the 
 door, the last package had been put into it — the time 
 of departure had come. The sky, which had been clear 
 throughout the day, had clouded over and the rain 
 was pouring down in torrents; it was a miserable 
 night. There was no excuse and no time for further 
 delay. He must go. 
 
 A man on his way to the wars may march through 
 crowded streets, with bands playing and colours 
 flying, with the mob cheering, and handkerchiefs 
 fluttering from balconies — a look of exultation on his 
 face, pride and hope in his heart. A man may leave 
 for the wars from the platform of a garrison railway- 
 station, the sad strains of Auld Lang Syne ringing in 
 his ears, and the last kiss of his wife lingering upon his 
 lips for many an hour after he has lost sight of her 
 waving hand ; a man may stand at a ship's side and 
 watch England, Home, and all that is dear to him 
 fading away into the distance. There are various 
 ways of leaving for the wars, all more or less heroic. 
 But to pass from the genial light of home into the 
 pouring rain outside, and step into a common 
 Ulrica- gharri, is more prosaic than heroic. Lucy was 
 crying a little ; and in his last embrace, while 
 
GOOD-BYE. 135 
 
 bidding her be brave, he held her to his heart as if 
 he would never again release his hold. " I'll soon, 
 soon be back, my darling, but don't let the little chap 
 forget me ! " Then with a wrench he tore himself 
 free. 
 
 " The station ! " she heard him shout defiantly ; and 
 the sound of the crunching wheels was soon lost in the 
 distance. 
 
 " Put out the dress that came home for me to-day," 
 was the order Judith received a little later. 
 
 " What ! going out — to-night ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; it's a bore, but I must go, I suppose." 
 
136' JAMES VRA1LLE. 
 
 CHAPTEB VHI. 
 
 WOKK. 
 
 In point of distance, Yraille's journey was a long one, 
 in point of time much longer. For six-and-thirty 
 hours the train whirled him westward, but then all 
 rapidity and eyen certainty of movement ceased, and 
 he experienced difficulties and delays innumerable. 
 
 He journeyed in jerks ; now crawling at a snail's 
 pace on a high road behind a pair of jaded animals 
 called by courtesy horses, stopping at every rut in 
 which a wheel could stick ; now flying at break -neck 
 speed along a broken track in a tonga mail-cart drawn 
 by three hill ponies abreast, whose only paces were 
 a shambling walk and a riotous gallop. An eighteen 
 hours' journey in one of these tongas was a gymnastic 
 exercise tbat gave him an ache in every bone of his 
 body. Still, anything was better than delay ; and it 
 was exasperating to be detained for days at a time 
 waiting his turn for a place in one or other of 
 these vehicles, and then, at the last moment, to see it 
 given to some one else whose business was more urgent 
 than his own. On that busy road, where all were 
 struggling for the same goal, he was but an un- 
 important individual, armed with no " pressing " or 
 " special " orders, and his progress was proportionately 
 slow. 
 
WORK. 137 
 
 But, like every one else, he got on somehow, 
 shedding portmanteaux as he went, and consigning to 
 Parsee care every vestige of surplus stock in hand. 
 At last, after experiencing many of the minor fortunes 
 and misfortunes of war, he reached the mysterious line 
 of demarcation between British territory and foreign 
 soil — the Frontier ! Here the exigencies of the service 
 required that he should remain. Thus far, and, for 
 the present at any rate, no farther were the orders he 
 received ; and so, within actual sight of the promised 
 land, he halted and, literally enough, pitched his tent. 
 
 The invisible though far from imaginary line which 
 just then meant so much to military mankind, 
 stretched across the arid country at his very feet ; 
 on the far side lay ambition, on the near side dis- 
 appointment ; on both work and heat in plenty. Here 
 peace was supposed to end and war to begin, and just 
 short of the distinctive limit Vraille soon found 
 himself very hard at work. 
 
 From morning until night he worked. Idleness in 
 such a place was impossible, quiet unknown, and a 
 night's rest a luxury. Order was here thrown daily 
 into confusion, and confusion reduced to order. It 
 was incessant and almost overwhelming work, but he 
 laboured on and hoped. Day after day the living 
 stream from India poured through the rocky pass, but 
 he was left behind as in a swirling eddy. Week after 
 week thousands of marching feet crossed the threshold 
 of hostility, while his seemed destined never to advance 
 a step. He saw drafts formed into columns, and stores 
 into convoys ; he watched them depart one by one, and 
 sent a sigh after each. For no glory attended all this 
 
138 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 work — it was but the preparation for glory, and, 
 although he performed his duties with a zeal and 
 earnestness that invested all his labours with a sort 
 of melancholy merit, his soul panted for movement — 
 movement that would carry him beyond the limits of 
 mere active duty into the confines of active service. 
 Such is war! The humblest and least ambitious of 
 us likes to feel that his labour means reward ; and 
 where medals, clasps, and hatta are at stake, the 
 invisible line that separates them from duty for duty's 
 sake is a distinctive boundary that it is well to cross 
 and leave as far behind as possible. 
 
 Vraille was no high-souled hero who despised the 
 little tokens of success; on the contrary, he wanted 
 them, and had come over a thousand miles to get 
 them. No one seemed to take any notice of him, and 
 so, losing patience at last, he laid his case before those 
 in authority over him, and said he wished to get on. 
 Any application he liked to put in, he was told, would 
 be forwarded through the proper channel. And here 
 a slight surprise was in store for him : the proper 
 channel for those beyond the frontier serving in his 
 capacity was Colonel Dare. Now Jim knew well 
 enough that Colonel Dare was employed on the same 
 service as himself, and in the same part of the country, 
 but he had supposed that his old friend had long 
 before pushed himself well to the front, and had 
 thought it exceedingly unlikely they would ever meet. 
 And, if they did meet, what then ? It mattered little. 
 The old grievance was now very old indeed, and the 
 old sore had well-nigh healed. Still Jim felt that 
 the Colonel was hardly the person he would have 
 
WORK. 139 
 
 chosen to apply to for any sort of favour, however 
 indirectly ; and under the circumstances he preferred 
 to wait and see what fortune or luck had in store for 
 him. Fortune had favoured him so far ; he was on 
 the very brink of his desire, and it only needed a 
 touch of luck to send him over. 
 
 " I've got a pretty good grip on to my new work by 
 now," he wrote to Lucy, " and as time goes on the 
 strain of course decreases. Already a stream has begun 
 to flow in the opposite direction ; the sick are coming 
 in every day, and the wounded, too, which shows that 
 things are going briskly at the front — the real front, I 
 mean. I am not likely to see much fighting myself, 
 nor am I likely to fall ill, for the healthy season will 
 soon be setting in. You need not be in the very least 
 anxious about me." 
 
 Poor Jim ! Anxious about him ! Ah, well, many a 
 better man than he never got near the front at all, and 
 few had such a lovely wife to write to and conceal 
 things from ! 
 
 The healthy season, as he so cheerfully called it, was 
 certainly approaching, but meanwhile disease was 
 accelerating promotion and opening vacancies in all 
 directions. His turn was bound to come, and it came 
 at last. B-ut it was not until the rigours of the Punjaub 
 winter had fairly set in that he heard he was to move 
 onward. With delight he read his orders, with alacrity 
 he prepared to obey them, and with enthusiasm he 
 wrote the good news to Lucy ; but it was with a feeling 
 of inward misgiving that he looked forward to serving 
 under the command of Colonel Dare. 
 
 By short, but not easy stages, he proceeded on his 
 
140 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 way, and soon got accustomed to a life of perpetual 
 discomfort. What mattered discomfort to a man 
 released from a Pandemonium of inglorious labour ! 
 He laughed to see the skin peeling off his face and his 
 beard sprouting in unsightly tufts, and wondered what 
 his wife would think of him if she could only see 
 him : ah, how he wished he could see her every now and 
 again ! He had pined for movement, and now every 
 day in the saddle was taking him nearer and nearer to 
 the front. The three months' delay on the frontier had 
 ruined all his hopes of serving in the first advance ; 
 but the war — although a number of engagements 
 had been fought — was very far from over, and there 
 was plenty of time and scope for action yet. From 
 camp to fort, from fort to serai, his duties carried him. 
 On the march, in camp, surprise was always to be 
 anticipated. Weak parties on the road, small garrisons 
 in the halting-places, were common objects of attack, 
 not so much from purely hostile motives as for purposes 
 of plunder ; but even the wanton murder of defenceless 
 men struck him with less horror than the sight of sane 
 men going mad from over-anxiety and too much sun, 
 as he had seen them do in the wretched place that, 
 thank Heaven, he had now left far behind. 
 
 Spring was at hand, and the hearts of those that 
 waited rejoiced. The snows upon the mountains were 
 melting, the passes would soon be open, and hopes were 
 high. Movements took place in the various columns, 
 fresh dispositions were being made, and the road again 
 became the scene of lively activity. Yraille watched 
 the living panorama as it streamed along, and caught 
 himself wondering whether everything in life worth 
 
WORK. 141 
 
 having (the mail had brought him no letter for some 
 time) was destined to pass by him, while he stood 
 helplessly on one side and watched. Around him 
 stretched the dreary waste of sand and stone. Before 
 him lay the road, laden with rotting carcases that 
 rilled the air with stench. Along it passed the hetero- 
 geneous crowd — long strings of stately camels and herds 
 of refractory bullocks, sowars and sepoys, growling 
 ammunition waggons and creaking carts, Pathans, Sikhs, 
 Half-castes, Baboos, Europeans. Here were all the 
 elements of war, but where its sheen and glitter ? The 
 sun glared down upon the dusty scene throughout the 
 day, then suddenly sank below the horizon, leaving 
 the chills of evening to complete the process that pro- 
 duced fever wholesale. 
 
 But fortune, who had stood his friend so often, smiled 
 upon him once again. News reached him that an 
 officer at the Head-quarter Camp, as it was called, had 
 been invalided, and he knew that in the ordinary course 
 of events the vacant billet would soon be placed at his 
 disposal. Was this luck, or was it not ? Could he 
 decline the post if it were offered him ? Hardly. Time 
 set his doubts at rest by bringing him " orders " to 
 report himself forthwith to Colonel Dare. For six months 
 in all he had been a wanderer on the road ; for three of 
 them he had suffered hardship and discomfort. His 
 discomforts, he knew, would soon be at an end ; but 
 should he lose his liberty of action with them ? The 
 success or failure of his next move remained to be proved. 
 Once again he struck his tent ; once again he saddled 
 Peter for the march. 
 
 The last stage was reached in time, and, on the 
 
142 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 afternoon of a too glorious day, after a longer march 
 than usual, Yraille saw in the distance the outlines of 
 an Afghan fort, and dotted about on the surrounding 
 plain a cluster of white specks sparkling in the sun's 
 declining rays. Larger and larger grew the specks 
 until they assumed the well-known proportions of the 
 many-shaped tents of a large camp. Directed to the 
 Head-quarter Mess, Jim sent in his name to Colonel 
 Dare. 
 
 " Well, Vraille," said the pompous voice he remem- 
 bered so well, "here you are at last; you've been 
 taking your time, haven't you? But never mind 
 that now ; we can hear all about it to-morrow. You'll 
 find a room in the fort to shake down in for the night, 
 I dare say. Come to my office the first thing in the 
 morning, and I'll set you to work." 
 
 " Yery good, sir," said Jim ; and away he went, 
 reminded by the savoury odours that pervaded the 
 Head-quarter Mess how desperately hungry he was, 
 and wondering whether he would be able to get any- 
 thing to eat and drink at the fort. 
 
 As he stood staring somewhat helplessly about him 
 at its mud walls, he was accosted by a lackadaisical- 
 looking young gentleman who was leaning out of an 
 open window smoking a cigarette. " Looking for the 
 mess ? " he said ; " here it is, come in and have a drink." 
 
 When Jim had explained his position and require- 
 ments, the lackadaisical young gentleman, who intro- 
 duced himself as Dr. Doyle, supplied him in a trice 
 with bread, butter, cold chicken, biscuits, cheese, proof 
 rum, and other delicacies. " Half a dozen of us," he 
 said, " attached to no particular regiment, have a scratch 
 
WORK. 143 
 
 mess of our own in here, and if you are going to be 
 under old Dare you'd better join us." 
 
 In spite of his languid manner and drawling speech. 
 Dr. Doyle — better known, Jim soon found out, as Dr. 
 Dick — had not only a number of valuable suggestions 
 to make for the new-comer's comfort, but did not mind 
 exerting himself to put them into effect. He speedily 
 arranged for a room in which Jim could pass the night, 
 superintended the picketing of Peter, and offered the 
 loan of everything he possessed. That night a pair of 
 really clean blankets, a soft pillow, and a hospital 
 dhoolie, formed the most comfortable bed that Jim had 
 slept in for many a long day. " Well," he said to 
 himself as he slipped into it, " the scratch mess may not 
 be so important as the Head-quarter Mess, but it is a 
 deuced sight more hospitable, any way." 
 
 In the morning he presented himself at the Colonel's 
 office soon after daybreak, but was told by a fat baboo 
 that the Colonel Sahib never put in an appearance 
 until nine o'clock at earliest. So Jim employed the 
 spare time in collecting his scattered baggage, pitching 
 his tent, and seeing to Peter's creature comforts. 
 
 When the Colonel at last arrived, he was brimful of 
 dignity and importance. The service on which they 
 were engaged, he said, was of greater consequence 
 than any in the field ; for what was an army without 
 mobility ? What, thought Jim, would an army be 
 without food, without help for the sick and wounded, 
 without stores, without an experienced staff? How- 
 ever, knowing that all the world over " there is 
 nothing like leather," and that esprit-de-corps was a 
 noble sentiment, he did not argue the point. 
 
144 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 " Of course," said Colonel Dare, " you are aware 
 that I am the official representative of this particular 
 service, and that a great number of officers besides 
 yourself are accountable to me for the efficient per- 
 formance of their duties ; but, as for the present you 
 are to work directly under me, I had better tell you 
 personally how I wish things done, that we may 
 understand one another. It is unfortunate that your 
 predecessor was obliged to leave without formally 
 handing over charge; but I will explain all that is 
 necessary myself. You will open the letters and pre- 
 pare answers (unless my special consideration is 
 required) for my signature, and have everything ready 
 for me when I come down in the morning. The lines 
 and forage will be under your sole charge, the books 
 and official documents will require your special 
 
 attention, the payment of natives " And so the 
 
 Colonel went grandly on, detailing matters that had 
 been at Vraille's fingers' ends for months past, and 
 evincing a perfect knowledge of the duties incumbent 
 on other people. The recital occupied some consider- 
 able time ; and, as Jim said, " Yes, sir," and " Very 
 good, sir," at intervals, he thought to himself that his 
 new billet was not likely to prove a sinecure. 
 
 " You must understand," concluded the Colonel, 
 " that administrative and executive details are your 
 province, responsibility and general supervision mine. 
 I am always to be found in the staff lines or at the 
 Head-quarter Mess, in the event of any emergency. 
 — Pretty comfortable now ? " he asked, lighting a cigar. 
 " That's right ; soon settle on service — eh ? I'll be 
 down the same time to-morrow. Good morning ; " 
 
WORE. 145 
 
 and away strode the gallant little chief, just as florid, 
 though not quite so stout, as Jim had known him in 
 England, but every whit as consequential as he had 
 ever been. 
 
 True to his promise, Colonel Dare visited the office 
 every day, and was never more than half an hour late. 
 His ideas of general supervision were very general 
 indeed. " They want a report upon so-and-so," he 
 would say, or, " The Government has called for such 
 and such a return," or, " Here is an urgent heliogram : 
 I have left blanks for the figures, kindly fill them in 
 and send on." Yraille wrote the report, compiled the 
 return, constructed the heliogram, and took all the 
 trouble ; the Colonel affixed his signature and took all 
 the credit. Still, Jim gained secret pleasure out of his 
 work, and secret pride in the thought that he was fast 
 becoming master of the situation. But while active 
 service meant for him office-work, occasional inspection 
 tours, and constant gallopings on Peter to and from 
 the lines, the really active part of the army was 
 advancing on before, like a will-o'-the-wisp that he 
 would never catch. Battles were fought, marches 
 made, forts taken, passes scaled, while on the lines of 
 communication all was comparatively inactive and 
 secure. Security and inaction led to the desire for 
 amusement in default of anything better, and there 
 was plenty going forward in the place — polo, 
 gymkhanas, races, sports, concerts, cricket. Where, 
 and under what circumstances, when two or three 
 Englishmen are gathered together, is there not sport 
 of some kind ? And where — in the Desert of Sahara, 
 on the Steppes of Siberia — would they not play cricket ? 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 Vraille bad little leisure, and perhaps not much 
 inclination, to take any great part in these amuse- 
 ments, but he thoroughly enjoyed the good-fellowship 
 of the Bohemian mess to which he belonged. 
 
 " Come down and have a look at the cricket," said 
 Dr. Dick to him one afternoon ; " there won't be 
 much more of it now from what the thermometer says, 
 and an outing would do you good." 
 
 " I've got tome work I ought to do," said Jim, 
 hesitatingly; "but perhaps I could let it stand over 
 until to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow ! of 
 course it will stand over ; take it with the rest that 
 that old fool will pile upon you to-morrow. You'll 
 never reach to-morrow, and you'll never reach the end 
 of your work if you try to get through all old Dare 
 tells you to do — every one but you knows that." 
 
 " Oh, I know it too ! " laughed Jim, sighing all the 
 same. " Well, all right, Dick, I'll go with you." 
 
 Eichard Doyle, the youthful-looking doctor, and 
 James Vraille, the old-looking captain, were a 
 strangely-assorted pair. To all appearances there was 
 nothing in common between them ; but friendship, no 
 less than love, is guided by no fixed law, unless it be 
 the law of contraries, and is often cemented by 
 seeming incongruities. Dr. Dick was distinguished 
 for the symmetry of his figure, the elegance of his 
 hand and feet, the beau ty of his eyes and complexion, 
 and the cleanliness of his attire under all circum- 
 stances. For some unknown reason (perhaps that his 
 eyes reminded him of Lucy's — who knows?) Vraille 
 had formed one of those strong attachments to which 
 
WORK. 147 
 
 he was addicted, and spent the greater part of his 
 spare time in the company of this refined young 
 gentleman. They discussed all sorts of questions 
 together, and in these discussions the younger man 
 listened with phlegmatic interest to the enthusiasm 
 of the elder. What one saw to admire in the other 
 no one could understand ; but perhaps it was a plea- 
 sure to Vraille to open his mind unrestrainedly to 
 an appreciative listener ; and perhaps Dr. Dick had 
 quicker perceptive faculties than most people, and 
 recognised qualities in his white-haired companion 
 which were hidden from the outside world. Be that 
 as it may, some subtle sympathy existed between the 
 two, and its influence tended to attract the elder 
 to the younger man. It was in Doyle's tent that 
 Vraille was more often to be found than Doyle in 
 Yraille's, in the sultry evenings when the day's work 
 was done. 
 
 "Why work like this?" said Dr. Dick on one of 
 these occasions when Jim came in and flung himself 
 wearily into a chair. " Why not let him do his own 
 dirty work ? " 
 
 "He's an oH friend of mine," Jim replied, somewhat 
 bitterly for him ; " and, besides, he has plenty to do 
 imparting instruction and giving gratis advice to 
 every one he meets, without bothering his head about 
 bullocks." 
 
 "He'll wear you to a thread," pursued the other, 
 "as he did the unfortunate devil you succeeded, and 
 never chuck you a thank, but take all the credit of your 
 brains and work to himself." 
 
 Jim knew that this was true. He had worked, and 
 
 l 2 
 
148 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 worked bard — there was not a camel in the place he 
 could not account for ; he had never received a word of 
 thanks ; and he only found that an intimate knowledge 
 of his business brought pains as well as pleasures with 
 it. It was pleasant to be sent for by persons in 
 authority, and consulted when the Colonel's memory 
 was at fault, but it was not altogether pleasant to find 
 the whole work of the office gradually devolving on 
 himself; it was, no doubt, gratifying to see his own 
 opinions and ideas figuring in important correspond- 
 ence, but hardly so gratifying to stand by and hear his 
 chief referring to my letter, my remarks, my report, 
 when not a word of any one of them had been written 
 by himself except the signature at the bottom. 
 
 " And yet he talks incessantly of his responsibility," 
 Jim said moodily, more in answer to his thoughts than 
 his companion's last remark ; " and, after all, he's only 
 playing the same game that every one plays more or 
 less ; but unfortunately he shows his hand." 
 
 " If I took that melancholy view of mankind," 
 drawled Dr. Dick, " I'd go and shoot myself." 
 
 " So would I," said Jim, stretching his long legs and 
 running his fingers through the grizzly stubble that 
 he used to call his hair when it had been long enough 
 to part ; " so would I. I'm talking rot as usual. ' It's 
 no fault of his if he don't like me and my ways — he 
 never did." 
 
 " Nor yours if you don't like him and his. He's an 
 ass. But have you served under him before ? " 
 " Yes, once — a long time ago now." 
 " At home, I suppose ? " 
 " Yes, at home." 
 
WO UK. 149 
 
 As Vraille seemed disinclined to volunteer any 
 further information on this point, Dr. Dick, after a 
 pause, continued — 
 
 " A garrison is a very different thing to a camp. 
 Camp life is more like school life — it's a great leveller 
 of persons. Authority and discipline are maintained 
 in both, but in both cant, selfishness, humbug, sen- 
 timent, are pretty sure to be roughly handled and 
 knocked about " 
 
 " Until they fall into their proper places,"' continued 
 Jim. 
 
 " Just so ; and I believe the reason is that there are 
 no petticoats to hide behind in camp." 
 
 Jim "winced. 
 
 " Sooner or later the man living under canvas, like 
 the boy at school, is sure to come out in his true colours 
 and show himself as he is. Look at you for example. 
 I'll bet that when you served under old Dare at home, 
 no one imagined you would turn out to be the most 
 patient military machine that ever walked in a pair of 
 puttoo pantaloons." 
 
 " Ton my soul, you're complimentary ! " laughed 
 Jim, thinking that Dick had driven a nail home. 
 
 " Take another example — old Dare. Now I expect 
 he was a mighty big man in a garrison." 
 
 " Took up the whole hearth-rug," said -lim. 
 
 " Is the respect he commands in this camp pro- 
 portionate to the dignity of his rank, do you suppose ? 
 or, better still, to his own conception of the importance 
 of his position? Who, should you think now, was more 
 often than not the subject of a good deal of the laughter 
 that we hear at the Head-quarter Mess about dinner 
 
150 JAMES YEAILLE. 
 
 time ? Bless your simplicity, they've found liim out up 
 there, and written him down an ass long ago." 
 
 " Well, running the man down behind his back is 
 not particularly fair, but I do wish he would look into 
 things a little more. I'm not satisfied in my mind, do 
 you know, Dick, that all is straight in that office, and 
 I don't want to see him get into trouble, whether I like 
 him or whether I don't." 
 
 " Why, what's the matter ? " 
 
 " Nothing that I know of — that's the worst of it," 
 said Jim, thoughtfully. 
 
 "Are you bothered, old cbap? Can I help you?" 
 There was sympathy and softness in his voice — there 
 was even tenderness in the light of his honest blue eyes 
 as he looked at Jim. Ah, how like they were to 
 Lucy's, and yet how different ! 
 
 " No, Dick, no — thanks — but it doesn't matter ! " 
 
 " Don't worry about him ; he's not worth it. Let him 
 sweat it out, whatever it is, for himself; it will do him 
 good. Let him rip. Take my advice and exercise your 
 energy in your own interests. Bah, you'll never get on ; 
 you're far too earnest. As for old Dare, he has go enough 
 of his own, surely, to carry him through anything." 
 " I wish it would carry him out of this," laughed Jim- 
 " O-ho ! " shouted Dr. Dick, whose humours were 
 as changeable as sunshine in spring, and as prettily 
 playful too — "o-ho ! here's jovial James cracking jokes 
 — and at his commanding officer's expense. Come 
 along ; let's take 'em up to the Head-quarter Mess, 
 they'll be appreciated there." 
 
 It was proverbial that old Dare had a bad time of it 
 among his peers — such secrets will leak out— but chaff 
 
WORK. 151 
 
 did his temper little good. The louder the laughter 
 overnight, the worse time Jim had of it in the morning. 
 At such times the little gentleman was portentously 
 busy. Business with him meant fuss, and fuss meant 
 heat, dust, and general unpleasantness all round, not 
 to mention much valuable time wasted. He inquired, 
 into this, searched into that, scattering books and 
 papers in all directions ; asked for obsolete orders and 
 quoted old regulations, clotted down instructions on 
 slips of paper, counter-ordering them as he went along, 
 and contradicting himself continually. 
 
 This sort of thing generally put him in a good 
 temper, for after a time he would stop to talk about 
 " a good day's work," " going thoroughly into things 
 myself," and " waking you all up." But one morning, 
 a day or two after Jim's talk with Dr. Dick, when 
 the Colonel had thrown the office into greater confusion 
 than usual, and was still unsatisfied with his day's 
 work, he suddenly recollected an error in his accounts 
 to which Yraille had called his attention the day 
 before. Having cleared the office, he put on a 
 confidential air, dipped his pen into the ink (for no 
 manifest reason), and lowering his voice, said — 
 
 " And now, how about that mistake ?" 
 
 " I have corrected it," said Yraille. 
 
 " Who made it ? " 
 
 Jim named a half-caste clerk. 
 
 " Tell him, will you, that mistakes of this sort must 
 not occur again ? I won't have mistakes made." 
 
 " You recollect," said Jim, " that I have pointed out 
 three or four of the same sort before." 
 
 " I know, I know," said the Colonel, testily. " Why 
 
152 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 can't you manage to make things work smoothly ? 
 These little hitches give a great deal of trouble, and 
 you must see for the future that they are avoided." 
 
 " But suppose," said Jim, looking the Colonel full in 
 the face, " that they are made on purpose ? " 
 
 " Made on purpose ! "What do you mean ? " 
 
 " That from what I have heard and seen I believe 
 that man is not honest." 
 
 " Not honest ! " cried the Colonel ; " why, he has 
 been in this office ever since I've been here myself, and 
 I never heard a word against him before ; you must 
 be very careful about what you are saying." 
 
 " I intend to be," said Jim, grimly ; " at present I 
 have confined myself to beliefs." 
 
 " But it is your business, sir," retorted the Colonel, 
 warmly, " to report everything to me — everything, 
 remember ; I hold you responsible." 
 
 " Pardon me, Colonel, you told me when I came here 
 that you took the responsibility." 
 
 " In a general sense, certainly ; but in matters of 
 detail of this sort " 
 
 " All details, so far as I am concerned, are perfectly 
 correct." 
 
 " And when you took over charge " 
 
 " If you remember," Jim interrupted again, " I did 
 not take over charge." 
 
 " But I myself told you " 
 
 " What my duties were." 
 
 " Am I to be dictated to in my own office ? " cried 
 the Colonel, jumping up and looking angrily at his 
 junior; "am I to be browbeaten and taught my duty 
 by my subordinates ? " 
 
WORK. 1 53 
 
 Vraille only smiled. His composure seemed to irri- 
 tate the little man beyond all sense of dignity. " I 
 will not be answered in this way, sir," he said, 
 stuttering in his wrath ; " I will not brook contradic- 
 tion, let me tell you ; and I'd have you remember the 
 respect you owe me as your superior officer." 
 
 Vraille's lip just curled slightly, but he said nothing. 
 Perhaps his old major's advice about " expediency " 
 was standing him in good stead just then. 
 
 " You seem to insinuate that the work here before 
 you came was not properly carried out ? " 
 
 "I insinuate nothing," Vraille replied, rather hotly 
 now ; " I know nothing of what was done before I 
 came. I thought it my duty to tell you what I have 
 told you, and I believe what I say." 
 
 " Prove it," exclaimed the Colonel, " prove it ! Don't 
 come to me with ridiculous fancies, but bring proofs if 
 you want me to listen to you." 
 
 " Yery good, sir," said Jim, calmly ; " I'll try." 
 Now Vraille's thorough knowledge of Hindustani 
 had enabled him to understand a great deal of the 
 tittle-tattle that he overheard daily among his natives.. 
 He gleaned from what they said that they were 
 dissatisfied about some arrears of pay which many of 
 them had been induced to leave in the office to accu- 
 mulate instead of receiving when due. Again, that 
 many beasts supposed to have been stolen were in 
 reality given away as bribes or sold outright. These 
 things, together with repeated errors in addition and 
 subtraction, besides the graver mistakes which he had 
 brought to the Colonel's notice, led him to suspect the 
 honesty of the half-caste clerk. 
 
154 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 After his stormy interview with Colonel Dare, he 
 determined to put his suspicions to the test. Ac- 
 cordingly, that afternoon, he went down to the lines 
 among the natives, and boldly put to them, without 
 mentioning any names, a string of questions. The men 
 seemed only too anxious to unburden their minds to 
 any Sahib who would take an interest in their affairs ; 
 and Jim learnt many strange things, all of which he 
 carefully jotted down in a note-book. That night, 
 after mess, he went over to his office, and for a couple 
 of hours studied the ledgers and account books of his 
 predecessor, continually referring to his note-book, and 
 taking careful memoranda of his discoveries. What 
 they were he told no one — not even Dr. Dick. 
 
 Every day the Colonel asked him for his proofs ; 
 every day Jim answered that he was not ready with 
 them ; every evening he prosecuted his inquiries. 
 
 At last, when more than a week had been spent in 
 this unpleasant way, the Colonel declared that he had 
 stood the private detective condition of things long 
 enough, and had demanded an audit of the accounts as 
 a satisfaction to himself. 
 
 " Then, in Heaven's name," Jim blurted out, 
 " arrest that clerk at once on suspicion, or you're 
 done ! " 
 
 " What — what do you mean ? " Until then Jim had 
 always thought it impossible for the Colonel's face 
 ever to be pale. 
 
 " I mean that, as far as I've gone, that gentleman 
 in there, whom you trust so much, has let you in for 
 between two and three thousand rupees." 
 
 " Good God ! " exclaimed the poor Colonel ; " I 
 
WORK. 155 
 
 haven't as much iu the world — no, I don't mean that 
 — I mean it's a lie, and I don't believe a word you 
 say." 
 
 " Look here, sir," said Jim, drawing up his gaunt 
 figure to its full height, " you're a bit put out, I know, 
 and I can make excuses for you, but I won't be spoken 
 to like that by any one. You will be good enough to 
 withdraw that. last remark of yours, or I must leave 
 you to fight your own battles, and ask the General 
 to decide whether I have lied or not ! " 
 
 " No, no, Vraille, my dear fellow, of course I 
 apologise ; I spoke in haste — and no wonder ; I did 
 not mean that you were guilty of an untruth — of 
 course not. But just explain the state of affairs tome, 
 will you ? Quietly, you know, quite quietly ! " 
 
 The poor little Colonel was literally trembling 
 with apprehension. Vraille produced his notes and 
 memoranda, and at the end of half an hour had 
 convinced his chief that what he had said was no less 
 than the truth. 
 
 " Whatever shall we do ? " asked the Colonel, looking 
 up piteously at Vraille, his dignity fast deserting him. 
 
 Disregarding the we of this remark, the implication 
 of which he seemed strongly tempted to question, Jim 
 answered simply, " That, sir, is for you to decide." 
 
 "I'll telegraph to that man — what was his name? 
 dear me, I forget for the moment — that man, I mean, 
 who was here before you." 
 
 " He's dead, for one thing," said Vraille ; " and 
 secondly, so far as I can see, he has nothing whatever 
 to do with it. Any falsified accounts I've come across 
 are all certified as correct by your signature, not his. ' 
 
156 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " said the poor little man helplessly, 
 " whatever shall I do ? " 
 
 " Why, make a clean breast of it — arrest the man 
 who made the entries, and report the case at once." 
 
 " But I have already demanded an audit ; and, 
 Vraille, to he candid, I said it was because I did not 
 believe your statements." 
 
 " You did that ! " exclaimed Jim. He made no 
 attempt to conceal his disgust and annoyance, but 
 checked the words of contempt that rose to his lips. 
 
 " You see I can't possibly tell the General yet. I do 
 not even know the extent of my liabilities." 
 
 " Well, of course you must do as you like, but I 
 believe you are making a mistake. Come ! let me go 
 and clap the rascal in the guard-room." 
 
 " Don't address me in that familiar fashion, Captain 
 Vraille, although we are discussing confidential matters," 
 said the Colonel, regaining some of his dignity. " I will 
 give you my decision in the morning. In the mean- 
 time please make every investigation and endeavour 
 to ascertain the sum-total of these defalcations." 
 
 In this way some men give thoughtless orders ; 
 and others are found foolish enough to obey them. 
 To Vraille an order was an order, and he sat up far 
 into the night poring over his books. It was close on 
 daybreak when he laid them aside and went to bed. 
 
 " Well," asked the Colonel, turning up at office- 
 hour fresh as a daisy, " what have you to report ? " 
 
 " A deficit of four thousand five hundred," said Jim. 
 
 Colonel Dare gasped, and as he sank into his chair 
 clutched the arms of it tightly. " Arrest him ! " he 
 said at last. 
 
WORK. 157 
 
 "When I can catch him, I will — lie's bolted." 
 For the second time in their lives these two men 
 confronted one another under trying circumstances. 
 The tables were completely turned ; and though 
 Vraille had made no accusation, the Colonel now looked 
 every inch of him the culprit. There was a silence of 
 some seconds, and then in a broken voice he muttered, 
 " I'm a ruined man." 
 
 " Not a bit of it, sir ! " said Jim, encouragingly. 
 " Pay the men up, and take the rest of the money 
 with your report to the General. No one can say a 
 word to you then. "We are all liable to make 
 mistakes." 
 
 True as all this was, it failed to raise the Colonel's 
 spirits. " I said I was sure that everything was 
 right," he faltered. 
 
 " Well, now you must say you were mistaken, that's 
 all." 
 
 " Can you put the books right ? " 
 " Oh, yes ! " said Jim, cheerily. 
 
 " And we need not mention those men if we pay 
 them up ? " 
 
 " You need not, of course." 
 
 " Then it's only a matter of money — four thousand 
 five hundred, you said ? If I only had it, I could pull 
 this wretched business through. But I haven't ; I 
 could not, if I did my utmost, manage more than three 
 thousand — you said three thousand yesterday. I am a 
 poor man, although I am a colonel. I say, Yraille, 
 
 you couldn't, I suppose — you couldn't " and there 
 
 he stopped. 
 
 Jim faltered, and then, after a momentary inward 
 
158 JAMES VBA1LLE. 
 
 struggle, replied carelessly, " Tf you don't mind being 
 my debtor for a time, Colonel, I shan't want my pay 
 for a couple of months ; I've plenty to go on with." 
 
 " Thank you, thank you ! " said the Colonel, pulling 
 himself together ; " very generous of you to be sure ; 
 but we will make it a pure matter of business. I will 
 give you security, of course, and interest, if you 
 wish it." 
 
 But Vraille did not wish it. 
 
 " You will oblige me," the Colonel remarked, as he 
 dried a cheque on his blotting-pad, " by not mentioning 
 this little transaction to any one — will you ? " 
 
 " You need not have asked me that," said Jim 
 sitting down to draw up the Colonel's report. 
 
 What the result of that report was Vraille never 
 knew. Three days afterwards news reached the camp 
 that the body of a half-caste had been found on the 
 road, murdered, and of course looted. The audit of 
 the transport accounts passed off successfully, and a 
 rumour spread that the money stolen by the runaway 
 clerk had been generously made good by Colonel 
 Dare. 
 
 Murders and robberies on the road were common 
 enough, and the affair was soon forgotten. Dr. Dick 
 at first plied Jim with questions ; but finding that he 
 would not answer them, confined himself to chaffing 
 his friend occasionally about his reticence. 
 
 " No one but I seemed to think it strange," he said 
 one day, " that a man should risk his life for a few 
 hundred rupees ; but every one was astonished that 
 old Dare should have been clever enough to find out 
 he was being swindled. Only the other day I heard 
 
WORK. 159 
 
 him saying how lucky it was he discovered the rascal's 
 tricks before much damage was done. He did not 
 mention your name at all. Now that was not kind of 
 him, was it ? " 
 
 " He is not exactly what one would call a hind 
 man," laughed Jim ; " but let's talk of something 
 else." 
 
 " In a minute ; but I just want to say that when a 
 man like you is loyal to a man like Dare ; when he 
 refuses a friend's assistance because he has that man's 
 secret to keep ; when he goes out evening after evening 
 and works half the night ; and when he holds his 
 tongue while every one else is talking, I strongly 
 suspect him of having somehow saved that man's 
 reputation ; and a reputation is not lost for a few 
 hundred rupees." 
 
 "He was perfectly straight," said Jim, hastily; 
 " indeed he was ! " 
 
 " You were straighter, or he'd have said something 
 about you ! " said Dr. Dick. 
 
160 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 CHAPTEB IX. 
 
 ACTION. 
 
 Then came the heat — heat that filled the hospitals and 
 sent men by hundreds hack to India — heat that pierced 
 through canvas as if it were tissue-paper — heat that 
 increased with each succeeding week, until there was 
 no appreciable difference of temperature between 
 day and night, and the mercury hovered about the 
 hundreds in the sun ; there was no shade worthy of 
 the name. 
 
 Now and then a skirmish, a raid, a murder in the 
 dead of night, a road-side robbery, varied the long- 
 drawn-out monotony ; but, for the most part, life in 
 those rainless plains was but a wearisome succession of 
 tedious days, all blazing hot, all bringing with them 
 disease and death in some shape or form. 
 
 Vraille had often changed his station, but always 
 gravitated back to the Head-quarter Camp after an 
 absence of a few weeks ; perhaps the Colonel had 
 learnt his value. A visit of inspection to a serai a 
 couple of stages up the line was now over, and Jim and 
 his chief were to return to the camp on the morrow. 
 
 He was writing to Lucy. " We hear of great things 
 done," he said, " but we do not see them. Great things 
 are not for me ; I am, I fear, a man doomed to in- 
 activity." (He did not add that inactivity was killing 
 
ACTION. 161 
 
 more men than all the battles of the war — and the war, 
 every one said, was practically over). " Yon should 
 have married a luckier fellow, Lucy — one who now and 
 then got a chance of doing, instead of one always 
 talking of wishing to do. You remember, darling, years 
 ago now, how I longed for a chance of distinction, in 
 order, as I said, to wipe out the stain of a certain 
 event which I need not name again. I have had my 
 wish ; it has been granted in the cynical way in which 
 Fortune has always bestowed her favours on me. 
 What is Fortune without Luck ? For nearly half a 
 year now I have been serving under the very man who 
 first put that absurd ambition in my head, and who is 
 now fast driving it all out again : indeed, it is dying, it 
 not dead, of contradiction." Here, again, he made no 
 allusion to Colonel Dare's official troubles. A woman 
 could barely be expected to take interest in such things : 
 and Lucy, he fancied, did not always (judging from her 
 replies) read his letters through. So he was careful to 
 refrain from digressions which he thought might weary 
 her, and tried to confine himself as much as j>ossible to 
 facts. Sometimes he even attempted the flippant, 
 amusing style ; but such passages, when he read them 
 over to himself, never seemed to him particularly funny. 
 " That moonshee," he said in one of these attempts, 
 " was a smart fellow in his way, although you never 
 liked him. He always told me I had more Hindustani 
 to unlearn than to learn, and that my knowledge of the 
 language was derived from the riff-raff of the bazaar 
 rather than from the classics of the country. I can 
 write it, speak it, understand it — all vulgarly it seems. 
 They were hard up for an interpreter for a court-martial 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
162 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 the other day. I volunteered my services. Had I 
 passed the necessary examination ? No. So I attended 
 the court in the character of private member, and 
 interpreted for the interpreter, who was a Higher 
 Standard man, and had been brought twenty miles to 
 officiate. He got his fee, I his thanks." He had 
 posted this anecdote long since., wondering what she 
 would say about it. She had taken a short cut out of 
 the difficulty and had said nothing. 
 
 Anxiously he looked for her letters : hurriedly he 
 broke them open when they came : eagerly he read them 
 through : and very often with an ungenerous feeling of 
 keen disappointment he laid them down when read. Lucy 
 was not a good correspondent ; her letters were often 
 ill expressed and sometimes misspelt. But that was 
 nothing. It was that they were so short, so barren of 
 home topics — and latterly so very few and far between. 
 For more than six weeks she had not written. He 
 took her last letter from his writing-case to assure him- 
 self of the date. It bore no date but that of the post- 
 mark on the envelope. — Yes ; nearly seven weeks old. 
 He glanced his eye over the letter, although he knew 
 every word of it by heart : — " Time flies in this place, 
 letter-writing is a positive difficulty .... You have no 
 idea how I am enjoying myself .... You remember that 
 dress that you said you did not like so much as my 
 others ; well, I had one made exactly like it and wore it 
 the other night. It was greatly admired. The Viceroy 
 admired it. The Viceroy danced with me twice .... Mrs. 
 Lovejoy and Mrs. Palmira were both there .... we did not 
 get home till three in the morning you never appre- 
 ciated me properly, Jim, I know, but other people " 
 
ACTION. 1G3 
 
 He put the letter back into its envelope with a sigh, 
 and sitting clown at his table wrote : — 
 
 " Send me just a word, Lucy — just a line every week 
 to say you and the boy are well. Do not let six weeks 
 pass again without my hearing from you. I am 
 anxious. Are you ill, and is that the reason ?...." His 
 pen flew over the paper — scratch, scratch, scratch. 
 He who wiites from the heart writes quickly, and Jim 
 wrote on and on from his very heart of hearts. He 
 was home-sick, he said, and yearning for a sight of his 
 wife and child. Sometimes at night he could see her 
 face, and hear her voice, imploring him to come back to 
 her. Was this all foolish fancy ? Or could it be that 
 some spiritual communion was granted to two souls far 
 apart, so that in some mysterious way they were in 
 reality but one ? Could it be that hearts which had 
 once learnt to beat in unison could never beat apart 
 again, and that only discord made them ache ? " I dare 
 not say that I believe these things," he wrote ; " but 
 often have I thought and hoped that there might be 
 some great undiscovered law (shall I say) governing our 
 spirits, as the laws of nature govern our coarser selves. 
 We are too ignorant to know, too material to perceive 
 its influences ; but every now and then there comes a 
 flash of sudden light to our dull faculties, and we think 
 we see for a moment the glimmering of some universal 
 but unknown truth." 
 
 He dashed down these high-flown sentiments as they 
 passed through his mind, and then caught himself 
 wondering whether she would read them with a yawn. 
 He put the thought away at once as unworthy, but 
 descended all the same to humbler topics. * 
 
 m 2 
 
164 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 "Do not forget, Lucy dear, that you see the hoy 
 every day and all day, and so are apt to think the less 
 of the changes that are taking place in him. Put 
 yourself in my place, who have not seen him for 
 nearly a year, and try to realise how you would wish 
 to hear every detail. Fill pages with detail — you will 
 not bore me. Can he walk yet ? Can he talk ? Do 
 you ever tell him about me ? You hardly ever 
 mention him, and . . . . " 
 
 A shadow fell across the paper, and looking up, he 
 saw the well-known figure of Colonel Dare. 
 
 " Writing home ? That's right. Plenty to tell them 
 this time, eh ? " 
 
 " Nothing unusual," stammered Jim, feeling rather 
 guilty. 
 
 " Why, haven't you heard the news, then ? You're 
 quite behind the times. I have just been discussing it 
 with the political officer here, and we agree in thinking 
 it the most important event of the campaign. Why, 
 my dear Vraille, an expedition has been attacked and 
 cut to pieces. Ayoob is master of the field, and it is 
 rumoured that this defeat has had a very serious effect 
 upon the country — generally unsettled, you see, and that 
 sort of thing. But, dear me, I am surprised at your 
 not having heard all this ; it has been the talk of the 
 place for the past two hours. I came to tell you, 
 though, about to-morrow's journey. This news has 
 decided me to push right through instead of stopping 
 as I had arranged at H for the night." 
 
 " It's a good sixteen miles," said Vraille. 
 
 " We can do it morning and evening. You see, it is 
 of the greatest importance that I should push on — the 
 
ACTION. 165 
 
 General might wish to consult me in the matter. 
 Make the necessary arrangements for escorts, and see 
 that we start early." Then the Colonel expatiated on 
 his news, and explained to Vraille how the calamity 
 might have been avoided. When he had finished, Jim 
 said : 
 
 " A small convoy is to leave H for the camp 
 
 to-morrow; I had better signal down to have it kept 
 till the afternoon ; we can then go with it." 
 
 " Certainly, certainly ; say you have my authority." 
 
 " Very good, sir." 
 
 Very good ! He had been answering his own 
 suggestions with " very good " until he was sick of the 
 sound of the words. Very good ! It was not very 
 good. The disaster which the Colonel had described 
 had taken place miles from where they were, and its 
 only result, so far as they were concerned, would be 
 an extension of the wretchedly monotonous existence 
 they were leading. Oh, Jim was sick of the war 
 and wanted peace ! 
 
 It might have been imagination — probably was — but 
 Vraille fancied he noticed a curious expression on the 
 faces of the hill-men they passed upon the road. 
 
 H was a small serai eight or nine miles distant 
 
 from camp, and while they had rested there through 
 the hottest part of the day, he had noticed that the 
 natives were chattering over their hubble-bubbles 
 more excitedly than was usual even with their 
 garrulous class ; their talk was of nothing but the 
 defeat of the Sahibs. The villagers, too, he thought, 
 were eyeing the convoy with cynical malevolence. But 
 
166 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 these fancies — for of course they were only fancies — 
 he kept to himself; and as Peter strode along with 
 monotonous tramp, head down, shoulders swinging, 
 soon turned his thoughts in other directions. "Why 
 had he received no letter for so long ? Was she ill ? 
 But that could hardly he, for Judith would have sent 
 her mistress's messages, and, "besides, he often heard 
 of Lucy through other people. What could he the 
 meaning of her silence ? The old doubts and fears 
 that had once so harassed him had long since been 
 dispelled under the influences of calm thought and 
 cherished hope. She had been thoughtless, and per- 
 haps foolish, sometimes ; but these were but womanly 
 failings, and had been forgiven long ago — and well- 
 nigh forgotten in his day-dreams, in the recollection 
 of her loveliness, in the prospect of soon seeing her 
 again, in the firm resolve to live more for her in 
 the bright future than he had done in the dull past. 
 This thought had always been a reproach to him. 
 But now a new anxiety had presented itself, and was 
 increasing every day. Doubt, was it ? Doubt that she 
 really loved him ? No ! a thousand times no ! — and yet 
 his heart ached. 
 
 As he rode on, he watched a grey crow burying its 
 beak into the side of a camel's carcass on the wayside — 
 burying it deep into the poor beast's heart. He got 
 closer and saw that the camel was not quite dead, but 
 moving in the agonies of death. The crow, disturbed 
 at its work by the approaching convoy, lifted its head, 
 its beak dripping ; then, lazily flapping its wings, rose 
 heavily into the air, leaving its prey dead. 
 
 " Ugh ! horrible ; horrible brute ! — pitiless, remorse- 
 
ACTION. 167 
 
 less vampire ! " And then he laughed. " The Ptoinans 
 looked on crows as omens," he muttered. 
 
 He was moody and pre-occupied, and as he had 
 failed to listen with attention to Colonel Dare's 
 remarks, that officer had ridden on in front. Between 
 them straggled camels, bullocks, four or five wagons, 
 and a handful of Pathans by way of escort, with a few 
 Sowars. Six miles of weary road lay before them, and 
 the afternoon was wearing on. Phew ! it was no 
 weather for marching ; the air was stifling, the stillness 
 of it phenomenal ; and the fierce rays of the declining 
 sun as they struck his neck and temples under his 
 helmet seemed to be burning holes into his very brain. 
 Tramp, tramp, tramp ; five miles now, and then Doctor 
 Dick, and a pleasant evening. Tramp, tramp ; what 
 beautiful eyes the boy had — like a woman's. But all 
 the girlish bloom of his complexion had flown— it was 
 the work — he had been very hard-worked, lately — 
 tramp, tramp — his face was longer and much thinner, 
 his large eyes larger — yes, much larger — he was 
 beginning to look more like a man than a 
 
 What was that ? The boom of a distant gun ! 
 Impossible ! And yet the same sound had electrified 
 every man in the straggling line, and every man, as if 
 with common consent, stood still. Hark ! Another — 
 and again another ! 
 
 Colonel Dare came galloping back. " There's firing 
 on ahead — I heard it distinctly — in the direction of the 
 camp. There it is again ! " 
 
 " I hear it, sir," said Yraille. The calmness of his 
 voice grated on his senses ; it was unnatural — a 
 moment before his heart had seemed suddenly to stand 
 
168 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 still, now it was beating hard against his ribs — it "was 
 not his own voice, but some other person's. To make 
 sure, he repeated : " I hear it, sir." Yes, it was his 
 own voice, but he had never heard it sound like that 
 before. 
 
 "What shall we do?" 
 
 Jim, as he listened to the question, wondered 
 whether his own face was pale like that — paler, 
 probably, for it was not normally so florid as the 
 Colonel's ; and yet he heard the same slow distinctness 
 in the voice that answered : " That, sir, is for you to 
 decide." "What made those same words come again 
 just now? 
 
 " We — we had better turn back, perhaps ; don't you 
 think so ? " 
 
 " Turn back — very good, sir." 
 
 Then, as he rode along the line giving the necessary 
 instructions, the details of the situation flashed in 
 quick succession across his mind, and he seemed to 
 grasp and realise each with almost painful distinct- 
 ness. Five or six miles on, not quite so many back ; 
 a good road, but firing, to the front ; a bad road and 
 reinforcements to the rear. Yes, a sensible order. A 
 hanging cliff of rock and boulders to the left, a dry 
 nullah and undulating country beyond to the right ; a 
 winding road bending round the cliff, and very little 
 view — a nasty place rather to defend. If the convoy 
 were indeed cut off, what chance of escape was there ? 
 How many men available for defence ? Three or four 
 Sowars, useless in such a position except on foot, and 
 a dozen Pathans — possibly natives of the country. 
 Some of these Pathans had been behaving badly lately, 
 
ACTION. 169 
 
 and hanging parades had not been altogether unknown 
 in certain districts. Another boom, and then another ! 
 The faint, far-off rattle of musketry — very faint, but 
 yet unmistakably distinguishable. Could the firing 
 be heard in those villages a mile or so behind? — 
 perhaps not ; but only perhaps, for the atmosphere was 
 strangely still, and on days such as this the sound of 
 the evening gun would travel eight miles or more. The 
 villagers and hill- men on the road had looked aggres- 
 sive. Altogether the position wore an ugly look, and 
 the order to turn back was wise. But could the order 
 
 be carried out, and the retreat on H effected in 
 
 time? 
 
 All was babble and confusion in the convoy ; from 
 momentary and absolute rest it had started suddenly 
 into excited movement. The natives chattered and 
 gesticulated ; the sepoys, gathering together in a knot, 
 murmured beneath their voices ; while the sowars 
 alone sat grimly calm upon their horses. The camels 
 gurgled angrily, resenting the sharp tugs given to their 
 nose strings by their drivers, who in the excitement 
 of the moment turned this way and that, heedless of 
 the pain they were inflicting ; the bullocks, left to 
 their own devices, were trying to toss their burdens 
 over their heads, but, caught by the horns in the 
 connecting bands of their double packs, could only 
 circle round their grounded loads ; the cattle, jostled 
 and pushed in the press, some struggling to reach the 
 solitary clumps of grass that sprang every here and 
 there out of the sand and stone ; others with lifted 
 head and neck outstretched lowed mournfully ; and all 
 the time the puffing dust rose up in clouds from 
 
170 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 under the shuffling feet, and added disorder to dis- 
 order. 
 
 But high above the din there rang a loud clear voice 
 — through the press there pushed a large, ungainly 
 horse. " Turn the wagons round," came the command 
 in Hindustani ; " put the cattle in between the wagons 
 front and rear ! Divide that escort — half of you to the 
 front ; come, double up — no time to waste in talking ! " 
 Squeezing his horse in here, urging him on there, 
 using persuasion in one place, force in another, the 
 rider, directing, helping, encouraging, threatening, 
 himself saw to the completion of each order that he 
 issued, and then rode back to make his report : 
 
 " All ready, sir, except one wagon ; we cannot turn 
 it where it is — the road is too narrow ; but we can 
 pass it— shall we leave it ? " 
 
 " No, no, we must not leave anything behind, it 
 would be looted — better try again." 
 
 " Very good, sir." 
 
 " Come, men, the Colonel Sahib has given his order ; 
 the Colonel Sahib means to be obeyed — and so do I, 
 his Excellency's humble servant." 
 
 But the drivers cared nothing for the wagon, and 
 in their sullen faces showed only too plainly their 
 reluctance to obey the Sahib's command. 
 
 " Come," sang out the voice once more, but with a 
 sterner tone in it this time, " his Excellency's order 
 must be obeyed " — and seizing a whip from a man 
 standing near, he draws the lash of it slowly through 
 his hand. The wagon begins to move; the work is 
 hard ; the wheels balance on the edge of the incline ; 
 the road is narrow, too narrow ; the men spring aside, 
 
ACTION. 171 
 
 and with a rush and heavy crash the wagon bounds 
 down the bank and falls upon its side into the nullah. 
 
 " Look, Sahib ! Look upon the mountain where 
 they come ! We shall die, we shall all die ! " 
 
 On the hill-side, beyond the nullah, having sprung, 
 as it seems, from the very ground, come men. How 
 many ? Impossible to count ! — one here, two there, 
 half a dozen yonder; perhaps in all some five-and- 
 thirty, perhaps more. Moving singly from stone to 
 stone, from bank to bank, from boulder to boulder, 
 slowly and cautiously they creep on towards the road. 
 The flutter of their loose white clothing, the glitter, 
 every now and then, of a naked knife, betrays their 
 movements, but not a sound do they make, not a 
 shot do they fire. Here and there among the stones, 
 now one man, now another, can be seen, but nothing 
 more. 
 
 " See, sir, as I thought, we are to be attacked. 
 Have you any orders ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, prepare for the attack — issue my orders, 
 please." 
 
 " Block the road front and rear with wagons ? " 
 
 " Certainly, certainly." 
 
 " Divide the escort ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Collect the cattle in between ? " 
 
 " Why in between ? " 
 
 " Their bodies, if they're shot, will give some sort of 
 cover." 
 
 " Oh, very well ; do what you consider necessary, 
 Vraille — say it is with my authority." 
 
 " I've done all that ; anything else ? " 
 
172 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 " No, nothing that I know of. Look here, Yraille, 
 there is something the matter with the cylinder of 
 my revolver ; can you put it right ? " — his fingers are 
 fidgeting with the weapon. It is snatched from his 
 hand — a moment's pause, and it is handed back. 
 
 " There, sir, you will find it all right now ; there was 
 not much the matter. Have you plenty of cartridges ? 
 If not, I can give you some ; we shall want them." 
 
 In the speaker's face there is a look of strange 
 exultation ; his eyes flash with the fire of a wild 
 enthusiasm, although his voice is modulated and low; 
 but about the corners of his mouth hovers a half- 
 playful, half-cynical smile. He is not a handsome 
 man, but at the moment a touch of something like 
 inspiration seems to lend his features a certain heroic 
 beauty. 
 
 " You would wish me," he said, " to take charge of 
 the other end of the line while you remain here ? " 
 
 " Certainly, certainly ; I was just going to suggest 
 some arrangement of that sort." 
 
 " And we shall not want our horses now ? " 
 
 " No, of course not." 
 
 " I'll report anything unusual, if I can ; I shall only 
 be over there, where you see those two wagons. Good 
 luck, sir," and he turned to go. 
 
 " Vraille, Vraille, one moment ! Do you consider 
 we are in danger ? " 
 
 " Very great danger, sir ; " and he is gone. 
 
 Pushing through the cowering crowd, he reached the 
 other limit of the line, where he flung himself from 
 his horse's back, and passing the reins over the 
 animal's head, tied them to the shaft of a wagon. 
 
ACTION. 173 
 
 Two wagons at right angles here blocked the road, 
 one across it, leaving only a narrow exit near the cliff, 
 the other parallel to its ouler edge, a similar arrange- 
 ment to that made in the place he had just left a 
 hundred yards or so to the right. Between these 
 points were huddled cattle, natives, camels, the latter 
 crouching on their bellies, and lining the edge of the 
 nullah-bank. Away over the maidan were galloping 
 a score or more of beasts that had broken loose, and 
 chasing them as many men— hill-men, lured from their 
 original design by the hopes of easier loot. 
 
 " Eeserve your fire and wait my orders," said the 
 European voice that spoke Hindustani so fluently. 
 Vraille was standing behind the sepoys who lined the 
 wagons, and as he spoke he hitched the cartridge- 
 pouch on his belt a little further to the front and 
 loosened his sword knot. 
 
 The fluttering garments of those beyond the nullah 
 were approaching nearer and nearer, until the faces of 
 their wearers could almost be distinguished. Hovering 
 from cover to cover, closer and closer they came ; still 
 not a shot was fired, not a sound heard, save that made 
 by the jostling cattle ; even the terrified natives 
 cowered behind the beasts in panic-stricken silence. 
 • Nearer and nearer come the turbaned heads, showing 
 every now and then above the stones ; while behind 
 them, far away on the horizon under the blood-red 
 ball of the setting sun, is gathering a cloud, rising up 
 out of the earth, up, up to the very sky, and onward 
 towards the scene of the impending struggle. The 
 air is absolutely still. 
 
 Then suddenly from behind a boulder rose the form 
 
174 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 of a tall thin man, stripped to his skin. Above his 
 head he flung his arms, holding in one hand a three- 
 foot knife, in the other a short dagger. With the yell, 
 " Allah ! Allah ! " he rushed forward to the nullah. 
 
 " Amuck ! amuck ! " murmured many a horror- 
 stricken voice upon the road. 
 
 " Fire ! " came the word of command, sharp and 
 clear — but there was no responding rattle. The man 
 who gave the command opened the breech-lock of his 
 revolver, looked down, and shut it again with a snap. 
 Click, click — he raised the hammer. Then from 
 beyond the nullah came the first sharp crack, and a 
 sepoy fell forward upon his face. 
 
 " Allah ! Allah ! " The naked man has reached the 
 nullah. 
 
 " Fire ! " came the command a second time. 
 
 " Sahib, Sahib, he is a sacred man " The muzzle 
 
 of a revolver is thrust into the speaker's face. 
 
 " Order the men to fire, or by the god of your faith 
 I blow your brains out ! The Sahib has said it." A 
 rattling peel, and the fanatic falls dead. 
 
 " Hah ! " A subdued murmur of relief ran through 
 the crowd of anxious watchers, and again they buried 
 their heads behind the bodies of the crouching camels. 
 
 A momentary pause ensued, as if the heart of every 
 man who saw that volley had suddenly stood still. 
 The smoke hung over the nullah iu curling wreaths, 
 slowly ascending and dispersing. Frightened at the 
 noise, the cattle began to push restlessly one against 
 the other, opening gaps in their huddled ranks. Many 
 of them then rushed down the bank to the front, 
 aud galloped madly down the nullah, again pursued 
 
ACTION. 175 
 
 by bill-men. Tlien from above the boulders rose 
 bearded faces, and glittering in front of them the long 
 barrels of twenty or thirty bandooks ; then puffs of 
 smoke and sharp reports. Now the camels could no 
 longer be restrained, but rising to their feet, pushed 
 and jostled one another in their fright ; some falling 
 heavily to the ground again, others rushing down the 
 nullah-bank. 
 
 Kevolver in hand, a tall man walked along the line : 
 it was James Yraille. Six times he fired as he went, 
 then, reloading as he turned, six times more as he came 
 back. Eight of the most restless beasts struggled no 
 longer ; and the natives in the road, crawling on their 
 hands and knees through blood and dust, crept under 
 the quivering carcasses for shelter. 
 
 Another volley from the front, followed by straggling 
 shots : to right and left the rifles of the Pathans now 
 answer : men drop on either side ; the stillness of the 
 air is rent with groans and shrieks : the attack still 
 presses on through the heavy-hanging smoke. 
 
 But out beyond the fight rises a dense and dusky 
 veil, up, up above the setting sun, and bringing 
 twilight rapidly. Higher and higher it surges, 
 closer and closer it rolls ; the sultry air begins to 
 tremble, and circling pillars of ascending dust stalk like 
 wandering ghosts across the plain. 
 
 The firing of the banduoks ceased ; the rifles rattled 
 on. Then through the din was heard the clattering 
 noise of stones rolling one upon another, and here and 
 there, through breaks in the curling smoke, could be 
 seen the flashing of naked knives brandished in the 
 nullah-bed. 
 
176 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 " Now for the thick of it ! Fire one more volley J 
 Ha ! There go four of them ! Trust to your bayonets 
 — they are of good steel . . . . It is Kismet ! Glory ! 
 — or the happy hunting grounds — it is the Great 
 God's decree ! " and leaping upon the wagon in front 
 of him, he fires his revolver right and left, till it is 
 empty ; then draws his sword and holds it high above 
 his head. 
 
 But surely all is lost, for the crowd presses in from 
 the right behind a line of sepoys tiring quickly as 
 they come. They are being driven in. The flank 
 is turned ; the wagons at that end are lost ; Afghans 
 clamber over them, and with shrieks of hellish delight 
 hack down all who obstruct their path. A rush is 
 made for the narrow exit on the other flank, and it is 
 soon choked with the struggling bodies of the natives. 
 On the left of the retreating sepoys one figure fighting 
 for dear life stumbles as it retreats — falls — and with the 
 rattle of displaced earth and stones, slides out of sight 
 into the nullah. 
 
 " The Colonel Sahib has fallen ! Come, two of you, 
 follow me ! " None follow him. Alone he springs into 
 the nullah, and, reaching the fallen wagon, stands 
 astride upon it, guarding the helpless man behind him. 
 His head bare, his revolver dangling useless at his side, 
 his sword gleaming as he strikes, the man upon the 
 wagon, streaming with sweat and bespattered with 
 blood, fights like a maniac. "Ha! another down — 
 one more ! There ! To hell with you ! " 
 
 Then all is sudden darkness. 
 
 The dust-storm has obliterated the scene. The veil 
 of blackness with bellying front, borne on by the 
 
ACTION. 177 
 
 rushing wind, has enveloj)ed man and beast, road and 
 nullah, friend and foe. All are as one — as nothing. 
 Like a wild sea rushing in upon the shore, the billows of 
 dust surge upwards and roll on, and the tearing wind 
 lashes all it meets and strikes it to the earth. Without 
 lull or pause the tempest rages — and will rage for an 
 hour or more. 
 
 When Vraille collected his scattered senses he found 
 himself lying on his back looking up at a clear star- 
 light night. All was still. 
 
 It was pleasant lying there, looking up at the calm 
 heaven above him, and he felt strangely stiff and 
 weary and disinclined to move ; so weary that he closed 
 his eyes again and tried to sleep. But his pillow was 
 uncomfortable, and putting up his hand, he found it 
 was a stone. Then he tried to raise himself upon his 
 other arm, but found he could not ; so he let his head 
 fall upon the stone again and tried to think. As the 
 glimmering rays of recollection slowly began to light 
 up his dull memory, he heard a groan, and stretching 
 out his hand in the direction of the sound, he felt the 
 arm of some one lying close beside him. " Who's 
 that ? " asked a voice whose well-known tones at once 
 brought back the past. 
 
 "It's I, Colonel — Vraille ! " He could scarcely speak 
 the words, his tongue felt like a strip of leather. 
 
 " Oh, I'm in such pain ; I've been suffering agonies 
 for hours and hours, and thinking of death. Oh, for a 
 little water — if I only had one drop of water I think 
 I should live. I thought I was alone ; I could not 
 move. Get water —ever such a little." 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 JAMES VEA1LLE. 
 
 Overcoming his feeling of lethargy with an effort, 
 Yraille struggled into a sitting position and looked at 
 the figure beside him. It was not a pleasant sight. 
 The poor Colonel lay upon his side huddled up under 
 the wheels of the wagon ; his face and clothes were 
 smothered in dirt and dust, and the upper part of one 
 leg was saturated with blood. 
 
 " You are wounded," said Yraille ; " here, wait a bit, 
 don't move ; I'll see what I can do." 
 
 " Get me something to drink — there's a flask in my 
 holster if you can find it — it was full of brandy and 
 water when we left ; be quick — bring it here." With 
 difficulty the Colonel gasped out the words, and Yraille, 
 as he rose to his feet and tried to moisten his lips with 
 his tongue, understood his difficulty. 
 
 There was no moon, but the stars twinkled brightly. 
 Yraille, stumbling as he went, made his way to the 
 nullah bank, and, with what light there was, tried to 
 find an easy place of ascent. The bank was not steep, 
 but his left arm seemed benumbed, and with the use 
 of only one he doubted his climbing powers. Not a 
 sound could be heard but the rattling of the stones his 
 feet displaced as he clambered up the bank, making slow 
 and painful progress. When he reached the top he 
 found the road strewn with the bodies of beasts and 
 men. He looked into the faces of the latter to see if he 
 could render assistance ; but the eyes that met his were 
 all glazed and staring, and as he stumbled on he heard 
 not a single sound. The contents of the wagons had 
 been thrown out upon the ground ; but anything of the 
 least value they had contained had been carried off by 
 the plunderers. Not a rifle, a sabre, a saddle, a living 
 
ACTION. 179 
 
 animal, could be seen : the convoy had been looted most 
 effectually. " This," he thought to himself, as he 
 stumbled on, " is the reason of the stillness ; and to the 
 fact of lying down there out of sight in the nullah while 
 the pillage was going on we owe our lives, I suppose ; 
 and yet some of those sepoys must have escaped 
 through the storm." 
 
 He found the Colonel's pony, dead and stripped of 
 saddle and bridle ; but after a little search round about 
 he saw a wicker flask half buried in the dust. He 
 snatched it up and began to unscrew the top, but 
 securing it again very quickly, he thrust it into his 
 pocket. " Not quite so bad as that yet," he muttered, 
 and, retracing his steps, made for the other end of the 
 line. Here he failed to find any sign of Peter, dead or 
 alive ; but he pounced upon a bagful of biscuits lying 
 under a wagon, and put one of them in his mouth. He 
 munched and munched, but could not swallow so much 
 as a crumb, and so, hungry as he was, spat the biscuit 
 out again. Putting half a dozen of them in his pocket, 
 he made the best of his way back to Colonel Dare. 
 
 " It's all right, Colonel," he said ; " here's the flask 
 — here, take it and drink." 
 
 But the Colonel did not answer, and Yraille, peering 
 anxiously into his face, saw that he could not answer. 
 He unscrewed the top of the flask and thrust the neck 
 between the fainting man's teeth. They closed upon 
 it, and the parched lips sucked in the liquid, drop by 
 drop at first, then gulp by gulp, until it was all gone. 
 Once Yraille made a slight motion as if to draw the 
 flask away, but instantly the other's hands closed upon 
 it, and held it to his mouth until it was empty. Then 
 
 n 2 
 
180 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 he released his hold, and Jim sighed ; the wounded 
 man was not accountable for his actions, that was 
 certain. 
 
 Ah," said the Colonel, drawing a long breath, " that 
 has put new life into me." 
 
 " Come then," said Yraille, shortly, " we must be 
 going ; get to the camp by morning we must somehow." 
 
 " I doubt if I can walk, Vraille ; what shall we do if 
 I can't walk ? " For the first time he tried to move. 
 " Oh ! " he cried in pain, " I can't ; I knew I could 
 not." 
 
 " You must," said Jim. 
 
 " You won't leave me, will you ? " 
 
 " No, I won't leave you ; but I must take you with 
 me somehow, if I have to carry you on my back." 
 
 Jim meanwhile set to work feeling all the Colonel's 
 bones, regardless of his groans and exhortations to be 
 careful. " Look here," he said at last, " you are not so 
 bad as you think ; you'll get along right enough when 
 I have tied your leg up ; just lie quiet till I've found a 
 bit of linen or something." He groped about among 
 the stones, and close by picked up his helmet. " Ah, 
 happy thought," he muttered; and ripping off the 
 pngree, bound it tightly round the Colonel's wounded 
 limb. " Now," he said rather sharply, " get up." 
 Colonel Dare, with his assistance, struggled to his feet, 
 and held on to the wagon for support. " Oh, my head, 
 my head ! " he groaned. " Oh, the ground is trembling 
 and rocking, and everything is swimming round and 
 round." 
 
 " Here, eat a biscuit, if you can ; it'll do you good." 
 
 While the Colonel was munching the biscuit, Jim 
 
ACTION. 181 
 
 searched about again among the stones. " It ought to 
 be somewhere close," he muttered ; " I know I had it, 
 but I can't remember how I lost it." 
 " What are you looking for, Vraille ? " 
 " My sword ; you haven't seen it, have you ? " 
 " Oh, never mind your sword ; for Heaven's sake let's 
 get on, I feel steadier now." 
 
 " But I do mind it. I have lost my revolver, that's 
 bad enough, but we haven't got a cartridge between us, 
 so yours is no good, and I'm not going to take you five 
 or six miles like that without a weapon of some sort." 
 Thus speaking, or rather hoarsely gasping out the 
 words, he continued his search, and at last, lying close 
 under the wagon, found what he sought. He picked it 
 up by the blade in his hurry ; his fingers stuck to it ; 
 with a shudder he pushed it home into the scabbard. 
 " That is a horrible sensation," he said to himself, and 
 then aloud — 
 
 " Now, Colonel, come along ; how do you feel ? " 
 " Better, better ; but I shall never reach the camp 
 alive — never ! I know it, I know it. And, Vraille, I 
 have some things I want to tell you while they're on 
 my mind ; there's that four hundred I still owe you." 
 
 " Oh, come, sir, come, this is no time to talk about 
 that. "What do you suppose I care about four million 
 now ? I've never given the thing a thought from that 
 day to this ; indeed I haven't. There, make your mind 
 easy, and just think about the camp. Come along ! " 
 
 Without more ado, he passed his sound arm round 
 the Colonel's waist, and half-pushed, half-dragged him 
 down the nullah. 
 
 " I cannot do it — I cannot walk on these stones ; 
 
182 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 hadn't we better take the road ? " said the Colonel 
 between his groans. 
 
 " Not just yet, any way," said Jim, grimly ; " your 
 nerves would not stand it." 
 
 " Is it a horrible sight ? " 
 
 Vraille did not answer. 
 
 " Tell me, is it a horrible sight ? Is it like a battle- 
 field, do you think ? You saw it. I suppose, when you 
 went up ; but you couldn't see the wagon from the 
 road — no, you couldn't see that. It was too dark, 
 wasn't it ? — of course, much too dark. But I've got 
 some things I want to tell you." 
 
 " Look here, Colonel," said Jim, halting for a moment, 
 " try and understand what I am saying. Our safety 
 depends on our walking. If we talk we shall be over- 
 heard, perhaps, and then we may never reach the camp. 
 Now, don't talk, Colonel, only walk — walk on and on, 
 you know." 
 
 " All right, Vraille, I'll try and do what you say." 
 
 With this understanding between them, they crawled 
 along for nearly an hour without speaking, often 
 stumbling, sometimes falling. At last the Colonel 
 could stand it no longer. " Vraille," he said, " I must 
 rest — I must indeed, just for a minute." 
 
 " Very well, sit on that stone ; I think we're pretty 
 safe now, we're a mile and a half from the wreck, if they 
 take it into their heads to come back." 
 
 " What I wanted to say was this, Vraille, and I will 
 speak. If I get out of this alive, your money is safe." 
 
 "Tush!" 
 
 " If not, I have left a record of the debt among my 
 papers. But, oh, I shall be safe in an hour or two, 
 
ACTION. 183 
 
 though I did not think it while I was lying under that 
 wagon. You see, Vraille, I am a very poor man — very 
 poor indeed, that's the truth — and if anything should 
 happen to me I do not know what would become of my 
 daughter Edith. She would be left without a penny in 
 the world. That is what made me so anxious. You 
 quite understand that, don't you ? " 
 
 "I understand what it is to have a wife and child 
 that I want to see again." 
 
 " But I have no wife now, that makes it so much 
 worse for me ; you cannot understand that — no, no, of 
 course not — but as you are the only person I have left 
 to speak to, I implore you, should anything — not that 
 it will, of course not — but — to do anything for her you 
 can, help her in any way, should she want help." 
 
 " Yes, yes, of course, Colonel ; but come along, 
 another couple of hours and you'll be safe, and then 
 you can go back to her hale and hearty, and look after 
 her yourself. Come, pull yourself together, and let's 
 jog on." He spoke kindly ; for the first time in their 
 acquaintance the old gentleman seemed to be showing 
 thought and consideration for another, and though it 
 was only now in his light-headedness, it was never- 
 theless a sign of the existence of kindly feeling latent 
 somewhere in the selfishness of his saner moments. 
 
 " Just one moment more, and then I'll come." 
 
 Spite of his fleeting wits, he made a great effort to 
 pull himself together and regain some semblance of 
 his old dignity. " Some years ago, Vraille, when you 
 were serving under my command, I saved you, you 
 know, by a sharp " 
 
 " Come along, let's go on now." 
 
184 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 " I might have pressed the charge, you know " 
 
 " Am I to listen to this babble and say nothing ? 
 Come, Colonel, come, or I must leave you here." 
 
 This, then, was why Dare had never mentioned the 
 court-martial to him from the day it had taken place 
 until now ! The man was babbling, and fast going off 
 his head ; but still, in his wanderings, he was blurting 
 out what evidently was upon his mind, and what, no 
 doubt, he conceived to be the truth. As poor Jim 
 stumbled slowly on, holding up the feeble frame of his 
 companion and listening to his unintelligible murmurs, 
 he thought of his child and his wife, of justice and 
 injustice. 
 
 For two weary hours the pair dragged their heavy 
 steps over the sand and stones, now striking the road 
 and making better progress, now stumbling along the 
 bed of a nullah, or, in places where the road offered 
 likelihood of ambush, walking parallel to it across 
 country. Often they had to stop and rest, for the 
 w r eight of the Colonel's body grew heavier and heavier 
 on Jim's arm ; once, where a filthy stream trickled by 
 the road-side, Yraille lay upon his stomach and drank 
 — drank until he could drink no more, and would 
 have drunk had there been poison in every drop. 
 
 Away in the east a faint light betokened the coming 
 of another day, and, straining his eyes to the utmost in 
 the direction of the camp, Jim tried in vain to make 
 out through the mists of the falling dew the outlines 
 of the tents. 
 
 " Come, Colonel," he said wearily, " only a mile or 
 so more, and an easy road ; come, one struggle more, 
 and we are safe." He passed his arm round the 
 
ACTION. 185 
 
 Colonel's waist once more and tried to force him on to 
 his feet from off the stone on which he was sitting. But 
 ,the man's energy was spent ; he had made his final effort. 
 With a sigh he sank into a heap upon the ground. 
 
 " Safe ! " he said. " Yes, we are safe, and after years 
 and years of wandering — long weary years. He sprang 
 upon the wagon, I tell you ! I saw him do it. One, 
 two, three — I think it was three, hut I cannot be quite 
 sure. But the service we are engaged upon is important 
 — more important than you think. Oh, yes, you may 
 laugh, but I assure you I have my authority. There 
 it is again ! Did you hear it ? Turn back, I say ; 
 turn back while there is yet time ! He saved my life ; 
 but for him, Edith, only the workhouse ; but that is too 
 absurd — not a penny in the wide, wide world. Why, I 
 have known the Victoria Cross given for less, indeed I 
 have. There was a man once " 
 
 The tints upon the horizon deepened, and the heavens 
 blushed with a rosy red. Phantoms of the night 
 skimmed across the maidan to their hiding-places ; 
 skulking jackals howled and hurried on ; night-jars 
 cackled out their last few notes, while bats flapped 
 homewards, and vultures swooped and screamed through 
 the heavy air. Shafts of light, shot from the east, 
 tipped the stones with gold, and, little by little, the 
 road opened up through the mists, and showed a long 
 straight line. Straining eyes and ears, Yraille stood in 
 
 front of the senseless man, looking down it 
 
 What was it ? Another party of murdering thieves ? 
 Was he to draw that bloody sword again and fight 
 once more, only one against ten — twenty ? No ! Thank 
 God ! help at last ! 
 
186 JAMES VRAJLLE. 
 
 " Poor old chap ! What a sight ! There, hold up, 
 Jim, dear old fellow, rest your head against my knee. 
 Now take a little of this." It was a soft, sweet voice, 
 full, overflowing with womanly tenderness. " Better 
 for that, aren't you ? Come, a little more — so. That's 
 right. Now lean on me ; put your arm — the other 
 one, old chap — round my neck. We've got a dhoolie for 
 you here. We came to bring home your dead body, so 
 cheer up — you're not dead yet by a long way." 
 
 " Ah, Dick, it was a near thing." 
 
 "We know all about it; some sepoys came in an 
 hour or two ago and told us. We had a bit of a brush 
 ourselves, you know, but the storm blew 'em away like 
 flies." 
 
 " How's old Dare ? " 
 
 " Don't you bother your head about him any more. 
 He's right enough, and if he only talks to-morrow as 
 he is talking now, it means the V.C. for you, my brave 
 old pal." 
 
( 1S7 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 
 
 Simla society sparkled with stars that season ; and 
 among so many shining lights, where none were small, 
 it was something to be a planet of the first magnitude. 
 Ah, Lucy Yraille outshone them all, talk as they might, 
 smile and ogle as they might, dress as they might ! 
 Little Mrs. Lovejoy, who at seventeen had married the 
 General when he was — well, some said seventy, but 
 people in India, especially unemployed generals, are 
 apt to look older than they are, and very likely he was 
 not more than sixty-five — little Mrs. Lovejoy was gay 
 and pretty and pleasant to talk to because of her never- 
 failing light-heartedness ; and Mrs. Palmira, that clever 
 consort of the astute Deputy Commissioner, was, no 
 doubt, excellent company ; but Mrs. Yraille, the wife 
 of old Jim Vraille up at the front in the Transport or 
 something, was the woman to know. Hers was the 
 jampan to walk beside, the villa to which to be asked 
 to tiffen or supper, the ball programme to be written 
 in ! At her shrine the worshippers crowded, in her 
 bright light they fluttered, and sometimes singed their 
 wings. And grass widows were innumerable that 
 season, male lepidoptera — butterflies and moths — some- 
 what scarce, so that Mrs. Vraille's pre-eminence was all 
 the more a matter for self-congratulation. Fair ladies, 
 who wished to flirt or dance, could not discriminate 
 
188 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 too daintily or philander too long with their favours — 
 she who hesitated stood out. But Lucy, among the 
 very few, was not one of those troubled with the 
 common anxieties and doubts that harassed the weaker 
 of her weaker sex. She was above emulation and 
 beyond competition. She could pick and choose as she 
 pleased without detriment to her enjoyment. And she 
 did pick and choose — as often as her fancy prompted 
 her; and she did enjoy herself — immensely. 
 
 " Oh, she is first, the rest nowhere ! " the favourite 
 of the hour would exclaim. 
 
 " Undoubtedly she takes the apple," the last favourite 
 but one would mournfully admit, " and there's more of 
 the Venus than the Psyche about her, after all." 
 
 While the war was at its height, and during the early 
 part of the summer, it had been a comparatively simple 
 matter to gain an ephemeral reputation as the Beauty's 
 latest choice — to snatch a waltz here, a ride there ; to 
 hold her hand, her waist, or her pony, as the case might 
 be, through shorter or longer periods of transient 
 beatitude ; to bask for an hour, a day, a week even, in 
 the sunshine of her approving smiles. But when, a 
 little later on, the place began to fill, these happy 
 chances came so seldom that they were scarcely worth 
 the physical trouble and mental anxiety of waiting for. 
 Still men did wait, and did hope, until Herbert Book 
 entered the lists, when they waited on, but hoped not. 
 It was of little use attempting to compete with such 
 a man ; his reputation was too well established, his 
 honours too thick upon him ; his advantages, bygone, 
 present, and to come, in the struggle for supremacy 
 too potent to make head against. He had ridden into 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 189 
 
 Simla with victory written on his smiling face. It was 
 a. foregone conclusion, and none knew it better than 
 he. In a week he was master of the field. 
 
 Ah, Simla was the blissful centre of the great Indian 
 circle of enjoyment ; it was the vortex of the whirl of 
 gaiety ; it was the nucleus of all that was entrancingly 
 charming. Never in all her life had Lucy been so 
 thoroughly happy ; not a day came that did not bring 
 with it some new pleasure, some fresh delight, some 
 additional triumph to record upon her long scroll of 
 conquests. Life in Simla was life indeed ; all other 
 existences were but vegetation. And then, when the 
 cup of her enjoyment seemed full even to the brim, 
 Herbert Rook — the man universally admired and made 
 much of, whose individual attention any woman of her 
 acquaintance would have given five years of life to call 
 her own, as she, Lucy, could — the man who had pitted 
 her beauty against that of the women of all Asia, had 
 come to sweeten the nectar in her cup and cause it to 
 overflow with the very excess of pride and pleasure. 
 "What he said she knew to be true. There was not a 
 face, a figure, a wardrobe in the Himalayas to compare 
 to her face, her figure, her wardrobe. Could she not, if 
 she chose, fill her programme three times over for every 
 ball before that programme was even printed ? Did 
 not men ask her to dance by the score, and could she not 
 refuse them by the score ? Did not women frown at 
 her, and could she not afford to smile ? Her success 
 she felt to be complete, the zenith of her glory attained, 
 the top of her ambition fulfilled. She was queen of the 
 season, with Bertie Eook chief courtier. 
 
 But holding court entailed expenditure of money, 
 
190 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 and Jim was becoming a regular " screw." He never 
 sent her a cheque now without an accompanying moral 
 lecture, and sometimes went so far as to divide her just 
 demands by two, saying that she must try and clothe 
 herself out of her own purse. It was not fair ; he had 
 married her under false pretences, and, indeed, had 
 owned as much himself. 
 
 She was in straits, and consulted Mrs. Palmira, who had 
 stood her friend before. Mrs. Palmira's opinion was that 
 a generous husband's knowledge of domestic economy 
 should of course be confined to addition and multiplica- 
 tion ; her advice was contained in the one word " owe." 
 
 " But I must borrow before I can owe," protested Lucy, 
 her beautiful eyes wide open with interest and sagacity. 
 
 " That, my dear, is the wisest remark you ever made 
 in your life, I suspect," was Mrs. Palmira's reply, and 
 Lucy felt quite pleased. Scores of men had told her 
 she was witty and talented and clever and " so satirical," 
 and many other nice things, but no one had ever called 
 her wise before. Jim, she had sometimes fancied, 
 thought her foolish, but she was not so foolish, after all 
 her experience, as to expect appreciation from a hus- 
 band. Jim's opinion was not worth a button, whereas 
 Mrs. Palmira's — every one respected that. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "I'm not a perfect fool, you know. 
 I'm not, as your friend Mr. Hicks would say, in leading- 
 strings by long chalks. I know a thing or two, and 
 one of them is, that I can't owe any more without 
 borrowing." 
 
 " What on earth do you want money for ? " 
 
 " Oh, come," ejaculated Lucy in surprise, " you of 
 all people to ask such a silly question ! " 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 191 
 
 " I really can't see, all the same ; you have a house 
 to live in, horses to ride, food to eat, servants to wait 
 upon you — all paid for, and what else you want, I really 
 can't conceive. Money won't buy wisdom, you know." 
 
 " Of course it won't ; and who wants it ? How 
 absurd you are ! But, seriously, there are some bills 
 I really must pay before I can order anything more — 
 even Pelliti has refused to send me in some things I 
 wanted for another little supper, and I've been obliged 
 to put it off." 
 
 " Terrible ! " said Mrs. Palmira. 
 
 " Yes, isn't it ? Now, really, what would you do if 
 you were me ? Do help me with your advice ; you 
 helped me once before, you remember." 
 
 " Yes, I do remember. I am not likely to forget, with 
 young Hicks dancing attendance on me all day long. 
 That horse of his keeps me in perpetual remembrance 
 — I wish it didn't; every race Mustapha wins jogs my 
 memory most unpleasantly. No, my dear, I am afraid 
 I cannot help you any more. I have a conscience, 
 though people do not generally think so." 
 
 So Lucy, for the first time for many a long month, 
 went about among the pines and rhododendrons look- 
 ing dejected and unhappy. "What was she to do ? 
 Gradually get dowdy, and wear old gowns? Cease to 
 entertain her friends, and fall in every one's estimation ? 
 Cede the first place to Mrs. Lovejoy ? Perhaps fail to 
 win fresh applause from Bertie Rook ! Mrs. Palmira 
 had deserted her in her hour of need, and she would 
 not confide in Mrs. Lovejoy; for Mrs. Lovejoy, she 
 knew, would not help her, and objectless confidences 
 with heartless women were not at all to her taste. 
 
192 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 There was no help for it, she must apply once more 
 to Jim. She did apply, and in course of time received 
 the equivalent of a ten-pound note. Ten pounds ! It 
 was little better than useless. But she would not have 
 felt so hurt if he had sent the sum, paltry as it was, 
 without remarks ; it was the accompanying letter that 
 was so galling. 
 
 " It is not, my darling," he wrote, " that I grudge 
 you the money ; but I really have not so much to spare 
 as I had. Indeed I have not ; I wish I had, and you 
 should have it all — all. But, dear, your request came 
 at a most unfortunate time. I have been obliged 
 — I could not help myself — to lend a fellow here a 
 couple of months' pay ; that means a little less than a 
 thousand rupees, and consequently I am rather short. 
 But I will send " 
 
 This was the sting of it. What right had he to be 
 lending money to " fellows " when his wife was in want ? 
 A thousand rupees would have helped her over the 
 stile comfortably, and enabled her to carry on the war ; 
 and the thousand rupees that by rights belonged to her 
 were given to a " fellow." She would show him that 
 her pride was wounded by not writing to him again 
 until he apologised. Each letter she received she 
 tore open to see if it contained a cheque, and if it did 
 not, flung it into the drawer that was already chock- 
 full of his effusions. 
 
 Deprived of all sorts of minor comforts, she struggled 
 on, wearing the same dejected air, until at last Bertie 
 asked her the cause of her distress. 
 
 "What is it ails my bright Lucy ? " he said; " why 
 is she no longer gay ? What is it, Mater Dolorosa ? " 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS 193 
 
 " Ob, nothing, nothing ; I am a little worried, that's 
 all!" 
 
 What a pretty name — Mater Dolorosa ! He always 
 had some pretty new name to call her by every time 
 they met. 
 
 " Come, Lucy, surely we are too old friends to be 
 afraid of trusting one another with our little secrets" 
 (Lucy's little secret was a common topic of tea- 
 table talk, by the way) ; " and if you do not tell me 
 yours, I shall only think it is something you would 
 rather I did not know, and then the charm of our 
 intimacy would be gone." 
 
 " It is not about you ; nothing to do with you, 
 
 except " The thought of Pelliti and the indefinitely 
 
 postponed supper-party prompted the word; but she 
 stopped in time. 
 
 " Except ? Ah, why will you not trust me ? Have 
 I ever attempted to deceive you f " 
 
 " No, no, no ! " protested Lucy, earnestly. 
 
 A ghost of a smile flitted across his handsome face, 
 but she did not notice it, and he went on — 
 
 " Then why will you not confide in me ? Do you 
 doubt that if you were in trouble I would try to 
 comfort you? or if you were in any little difficulty, 
 let us suppose, that I would do my utmost to help you ? 
 I might not prove altogether powerless, you know. 
 Surely, Lucy, you know me too well to doubt me." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; it's not that, but ■" 
 
 " And surely you feel some of the sympathy I have 
 
 for you; some of the great " A sigh smothered 
 
 the word. 
 
 "I know — I know, Bertie; but it's hardly " 
 
 vol. i. o 
 
194 JAMES VEA1LLE. 
 
 " There is one thing," he interrupted gently, passing 
 his arm over the back of her chair and inclining his 
 head towards her that his words might be all the more 
 low and impressive, — " there is one thing yon may not 
 know, and that is the secret desire that is always npon 
 me to render yon some trifling service in return for all 
 yonr kindness and hospitality to me. Yon never give 
 me a chance " — he asked her to luncheons and picnic 
 parties by the score, and she always accepted such 
 invitations — " you are too good — too generous ever to 
 suppose that you have put me under obligations, and 
 too single-minded ever to think that I might wish for 
 a happy chance of repaying some of them, however 
 inadequately." 
 
 Then he dilated upon her charms and personal 
 attractions, until, little by little, as surely as the cork- 
 screw draws the cork, he extracted the secret that he 
 already possessed. 
 
 " Is that all ? " he laughed, when Lucy's story had 
 been unfolded. "Is that all?" — and he laughed 
 again — a subdued, melodious laugh. " Why, Lucy, 
 dear, what a sweet little simpleton you are ! There is 
 nothing in that. Why did you not tell me long ago, 
 instead of pining over such a trifle ? " 
 
 " If he hadn't been so mean," said Lucy, " of course 
 I should not have been obliged to tell you, even now." 
 
 " Of course not ; but as he has done me a service, 
 trouble no more, ma mie." 
 
 This was a friend indeed ! She had never felt the 
 same towards any man in her life of the hundreds she 
 had known as she did towards Bertie. Ah, what a 
 cruel mistake her marriage had been ! It was a 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 195 
 
 terrible thing — she felt the fact in all its force just 
 now — to be mated to a creature who appreciated 
 neither her beauty nor her virtues ; it was a terrible 
 thing, after the blissful life she had been leading, to 
 look forward to those sultry plains, those dismal 
 evenings, those abominable books that he tried to read 
 aloud, those dreary homilies about aims and objects 
 and purposes. Oh, dear, the bare recollection of it all 
 was positively distressing ! And what right had he to 
 dictate, or seem to dictate, in his letters what she 
 should or should not do ? She was her own mistress, 
 free to do as she pleased while he was away. Ah, 
 while he was away — yes, while he was away ! Quite 
 so, while he was away. But he would come back — and 
 then ? Oh, bother ! " What a fool I was," she said to 
 herself, "to marry in such a hurry; it was my mother's 
 fault. He and I have not an idea in common, and there 
 must be some way out of such a ridiculous position. I 
 see what men are now ; I can tell those worth marrying, 
 and those not. The Transport, indeed ! " 
 
 That her husband should be serving in the Transport 
 was a special source of annoyance and humiliation to 
 Mrs. Vraille. Whenever she was asked what Jim was 
 doing at the front, the invariable remark of the 
 questioner, when she answered, was, " Oh, in the 
 Transport ! " in a tone of toleration excessively 
 irritating. Transport officers were non-combatants, 
 which meant, so she understood, that they drove cattle 
 and never did any fighting. Now Mr. Book's brother 
 was an A.D.C. ; and though Jim at one time had 
 talked a great deal about getting an A.D.C.-ship, it 
 had all ended in talk and nothing more. The 
 
 o 2 
 
196 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 Transport, she supposed, was considered good enough 
 for him. But the Civil Service was better than any- 
 soldiering ; Bertie was thought far more of than any 
 colonel or major, not to say captain. Bertie — she 
 wondered what he was going to do for her, he had not 
 said. 
 
 She was not left long in doubt ; Signor Pelliti and 
 one or two other gentlemen sent in their accounts 
 receipted. The delicacy of the whole proceeding 
 enchanted her ; Bertie was a noble fellow as well as a 
 nobleman. She went here, there and everywhere in 
 search of him with thanks — and a kiss even, if he 
 cared to take it — upon her lips. But Mr. Book was a 
 wise man in his generation, and a diplomat to boot ; 
 he had gone, she learnt, upon a secret mission into the 
 interior, and would not be back for a week or ten days. 
 At the end of a fortnight he had not returned, and 
 every additional day's absence increased her desire to 
 see him. She missed him terribly, for, somehow, her 
 old admirers did not rush to fill his vacant place so 
 eagerly as might have been expected, though fresh 
 ones, who did not know of his existence, were fairly 
 attentive. But they were none of them like him. 
 
 Meanwhile official Simla was in a flutter ; chuprassees 
 rushed hither and thither with minutes and large 
 envelopes, and the news of the British defeat was upon 
 everybody's lips. A garrison was cut off and cooped 
 up within the walls of an isolated fort daily expecting 
 to be attacked. A march, destined afterwards to live 
 in history, was to be undertaken, perilous as it was, as 
 the only means of relief. All this interested Lucy but 
 little ; s?he had received a letter from Jim — no remit- 
 
PINES AND ItHODODENDPiONS. 197 
 
 tance — dated a few days after the catastrophe, so he at 
 any rate was safe enough. He just alluded to the 
 disaster at the end of his letter, but for the most part 
 it was filled with complaints about himself, verbal 
 meanderings into subjects of no special interest — most 
 of them sheer nonsense — and, so far as she had 
 deciphered the hurriedly-written sheets, questions 
 about the child. She put the letter in the drawer 
 with the rest, and thought no more about it until a few 
 days afterwards at a picnic party. 
 
 The subject of a ball was under discussion. It was 
 to have been the ball "of the season, but there was a 
 rumour current that it would be indefinitely post- 
 poned, if not put off altogether, on account of the 
 recent news. Lucy was listening with the deepest 
 interest to what Mrs. Palmira, Mrs. Lovejoy, and their 
 usual accompaniments, Mr. Hicks and Major Hercules, 
 had to say upon the subject. 
 
 " It is sure to be all right," said sanguine Mrs. Lovejoy 
 at last ; " the General tells me that they have squared 
 it, and he ought to know as he is on the committee." 
 
 u But for all that, it won't be for a jolly long time 
 yet," sighed Major Hercules, looking affectionately at 
 his inamorata pro tern. 
 
 " Time enough," said Mrs. Palmira ; " long before 
 I've outlived Mr. Hicks's fidelity, and time enough to 
 give Bertie a chance of coming back — eh, Lucy ? " 
 Lucy blushed with pleasure. 
 
 " By the way," asked young Hicks, " have you heard 
 anything further of Jim, Mrs. Yraille ? " 
 
 " Anything further ! " repeated Lucy. " How do 
 you mean ? " 
 
198 JAMES VRA1LLE. 
 
 "What, don't you know?" 
 
 Then they all told her : Jim's convoy — at least one 
 that he happened to be marching with, for of course 
 Colonel Dare was in command — had been cut to pieces, 
 and he and the Colonel had only escaped by the skin of 
 their teeth. 
 
 " They say he behaved splendidly," said Major 
 Hercules. 
 
 " Who did ? " asked Lucy. 
 
 " Why, not old Dare ! " roared the giant in name. 
 
 " And since you seem so ignorant of what every one 
 is talking about," exclaimed Mrs. Lovejoy with all the 
 good nature of womanly friendship, " and know so 
 little of your own husband's affairs, perhaps I've got a 
 nice little surprise in store for you. The General said 
 this morning that the V.C. was talked of — unofficially, 
 of course." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Lucy. 
 
 " But he only did his duty after all," objected bold 
 young Hicks. 
 
 " Wait till you do yours as well, then see what you 
 think," said Hercules. 
 
 " Serves you right, Mr. Hicks," said Mrs. Palmira to 
 her youthful and eager swain. " Don't talk about 
 things you don't understand, Y.C.'s included." 
 
 " You are jealous," continued Mrs. Lovejoy, adding 
 her stroke to Hicks's chastisement, " because you could 
 not get up to the front yourself, like Captain Yraille 
 and Major Hercules, and a host of others." 
 
 This was touching the young gentleman on the raw. 
 He writhed, and in defiance of Mrs. Palmira's warning 
 eye, retorted hotly — ■ 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 199 
 
 " Of course he "behaved well, we all know that ; but 
 I say again he won't get the Y.C., if it is only because 
 the convoy was attacked by tribes supposed to be 
 friendly, and the whole things will be hushed up as 
 much as possible." 
 
 " Shut up ! " said Mrs. Palmira, peremptorily, 
 knowing that there was more truth than caution in the 
 angry youth's remarks. Hicks did shut up ; but other 
 tongues were not so easily silenced, and a lady, who 
 cared nothing for Mrs. Palmira's glances, started the 
 subject afresh. 
 
 " I suppose you know,"' she said, addressing the 
 company in general, " that the man he saved is dead." 
 
 " Dead ! Colonel Dare dead ! You don't say so ! " 
 
 " So I heard this morning. I believe there is no 
 doubt about it." 
 
 " Dear me," said Mrs. Palmira, quite pathetically, " it 
 is only the other day, as it were, that I saw him ; and 
 we met his daughter at dinner — don't you remember, 
 Lucy ? — while she was staying with Mrs. Phelps." 
 
 Lucy remembered her distinctly — a dark plain girl, 
 who sang some German songs rather well. 
 
 " The Miss Dare I mean, Mrs. Yraille," said the 
 lady with the news stiffly, " does not sing ' rather well,' 
 she has a lovely voice, and is not particularly plain, 
 either. Perhaps you are thinking of some one else ? " 
 
 " Oh dear no," Lucy replied promptly ; " it is the 
 same. My husband took her in to dinner that night 
 — he knew her in England — and I recollect he told me 
 she was Colonel Dare's daughter. I certainly thought 
 she was plain, but perhaps it was only the unbecoming 
 dress she had on, and " 
 
200 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 " Any way," said the other, cutting in sharply on 
 Lucy's reminiscences, " she is a friend of mine, and her 
 father's death will be a terrible blow to her. She has 
 no mother ; the Colonel was not very well off, I fear, 
 and she will be left without a penny in the world, 
 and with scarcely a relation to help her. Indeed, I 
 know she wished to try and earn her own living in 
 England instead of coming out with her father, but he 
 would not hear of it. "What she will do now I really 
 don't know." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! How very sad ! Poor thing ! " 
 
 And then the conversation turned again upon the 
 ball. Such is the mutability of human interests ! 
 
 Miss Dare's affairs were matters of little consequence 
 to Lucy, and she soon forgot all about them ; but for 
 some time to come she pondered over what she had 
 heard about Jim. To begin with, she did not believe 
 there was much truth in it. Jim was a non-combatant ; 
 and though she knew that a war was going on some- 
 where, and that battles of a kind were being fought, 
 she had always imagined that the Afghans were the 
 people killed, wounded, taken prisoners and that sort 
 of thing, not the English, still less the non-combatant 
 English. A war to her meant marching a long way off, 
 shooting so many black men, and marching home again ; 
 a campaign, living in tents ; a battle, a lot of men 
 leaving those tents in the morning, going without 
 dinner j)erhaps that day, and returning in the evening 
 rather tired. Until now she had never dreamed of 
 such a thing as Jim distinguishing himself; and, as it 
 was, she had not the slightest idea what he had done. 
 She supposed he had had a stroke of his usual good 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 201 
 
 luck ; and she was decidedly glad, for people could no 
 longer look upon her as the wife of a Transport officer 
 who . never fought. Jim's stroke of fortune would 
 raise her in their estimation ; she was glad, and, with 
 one thing and another, quite happy again. 
 
 There were two other inmates of the little villa glad- 
 dened also by the news when it reached them. They 
 expressed their feelings in different ways, and neither 
 of them as the mistress of the house expressed hers. 
 
 " There's been dreadful fighting, baby boy," said one, 
 " and the poor pretty soldiers that I showed you the 
 pictures of many and many a time has been pouring 
 out their blood — redder than the coats they don't wear 
 in them parts — upon the dust, for their country and 
 their Queen, and their pay, pretty chick ! Lord love 
 yer bright eyes, how they do stare, to be sure ! I do 
 believe as yer understands ivery blessed word as is 
 said to yer. Now listen to Lalla, honey, and she'll 
 tell yer — though why you should call me Lalla when 
 my name's Judith and nothin' else, yer sweet innocence 
 only knows." 
 
 " Lal-la, Lal-1-l-la," said an appreciative little 
 voice, lingering over the labials. 
 
 " Lalla it shall be then — that's understood ; I sup- 
 pose the word comes handier to yer baby tongue. Well, 
 they was fightin' and fightin' through the heat " (but 
 she said 'eat) " of the day — all of 'em fightin', sargints, 
 ginerals, corprils, drummers, sargint- majors and all ; an' 
 them as was left, when the fightin' was done, bleedin' as 
 they was, had to march and march all through the night, 
 without a band, without so much as a ration or a drop 
 o' rum between 'em ; no gee-gees to ride, no " 
 
202 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 " Gee-gee, gee-gee ; gee-up, gee-gee ! " Then followed 
 gurgling sounds expressive of enthusiasm, and the 
 little face of the listener looked up, his eyes sparkling 
 with delight. He even tried to clap his hands, but 
 they clung together when they met and refused to part ; 
 the little fingers clasped and unclasped themselves, 
 then separated and wandered away down Judith's dress, 
 until one of them found a button-hole, into which it 
 crept. The baby eyes followed the investigations of 
 the finger, and the baby mind lost the thread of the 
 discourse in contemplating the mysteries of the button- 
 hole. 
 
 " And one brave man — one big, brave man, who 
 fought harder than them all, and bled the most, and had 
 the least to eat and drink — came back about ' revelly ' 
 the next mornin' ; and that big, brave man — now look at 
 Lalla whilst she tells yer, sweet — was dadda ! Now 
 say it after Lalla, baby boy — dadda ! " 
 
 " Dad — dee, daddee," repeated the struggling little 
 tongue. 
 
 " Daddee'll do ; it's near enough, and prettier 
 p'r'aps. No, sit ye still now, an' don't ye wriggle to 
 get down ; them little legs '11 grow all crooked if they're 
 alius walkin' — time enough for walkin' ; talkin's diffe- 
 rent. Listen now to Lalla, boy, and try to talk. No ? 
 Well, what is it yer want, sweetheart ? " 
 
 " Tonee, tonee — Lalla, tonee." A dimpled arm 
 wandered out into the air, and a podgy little finger 
 tried to point. There was not a soul on earth but 
 one who could have interpreted the foolish little talk 
 and the feeble little signs. But that one happened to 
 be near, and Judith understood. 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 203 
 
 " Lalla's tonee ? "What yer can see to like in the 
 old thing I can't think ; but a rajah himself would 
 give yer all the tonees in his palace if he could but see 
 yer ask " (she said arst though) " for 'em like that. Here, 
 take yer tonee, chick ! Lalla loves yer." She got up 
 out of her chair as she spoke and gave the boy an ivory 
 brooch off the dressing-table. It was of Indian work- 
 manship, and represented an elephant — the only orna- 
 ment of any kind that Judith Foresight had ever been 
 known to wear. She never wore it now ; she would 
 never wear it again in all probability, for the sharp 
 steel pin behind it had been wrenched off when little 
 Jim had first taken a fancy to the miniature animal, 
 which, for reasons totally unknown, he called a tonee. 
 
 His fingers clutched his treasure and held it tight, 
 and his cheeks and chin dimpled into smiles as he 
 looked at it with his round eyes of nondescript colour, 
 and talked to it in the language all his own. 
 
 " Ah, when I see your sweet face look like that," 
 cried Judith Foresight, kissing the silky flax upon the 
 boy's bent head, " I seem to see your daddee once again, 
 only small like. He is the big, brave man that you 
 and I was talking of just now, my baby bright — the 
 sort the pretty soldiers likes to follow, and the Queen 
 loves, when she pins the bits of silver on to 'em in a 
 line with the second button from the top, just a little 
 this-ways from the centre of the left breast — I knows 
 the place right well. Them's the sort, honey ! — with 
 hearts like lions' hearts, but all the time as tender — and, 
 God help him ! sometimes as innocent — as your own." 
 
 " Tonee, Lalla, tonee ! 'Ook, Lalla, tonee. Oh ! 
 tonee — de-ar — ton-nee ! " 
 
204 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 "And many's the time I've seen him creep on tiptoe 
 into yer room o' nights, baby, and bend over yer wee 
 face ; and now, when he comes back, you'll be no 
 longer weeny as yer was, but he's got to see yer walk 
 and hear " — it is a pity, perhaps, that she said 'ear — 
 "yer talk. And he's got to learn from yer that dogs is 
 bow-wows, cats is minnies, birds tweets, ducks quack - 
 quars, an' all sorts o' gibberish that he never learned 
 before, but for all that will soon know a mighty lot 
 about, I'll warrant." 
 
 " Baby by-by, Lalla ; by-by — by-by-ee-ee." 
 
 The ivory elephant had fallen to the ground ; the 
 little face turned wearily to Judith's breast ; the little 
 arms wandered round about her neck ; the tiny hands 
 toyed for a few idle moments with the buttons of her 
 dress, then fell listlessly down, down. The flaxen head 
 drooped ; the heavy eyelids closed ; the babbling voice 
 cooed for a time in unison with the droning lullaby 
 that soothed the busy little mind into forgetfulness, 
 and then was still. The child, in all the trustfulness of 
 its childhood — in the fearlessness of perfect ignorance, 
 which knows neither sin nor harm nor sorrow — fell fast 
 asleep in the arms of the adamantine-looking woman. 
 
 She bent her head over that of the sleeping boy, and 
 gently — as gently as a leaf falls to the ground on a 
 summer day — dropped a kiss upon his upturned face. 
 Then, crooning all the time, she carried him across the 
 room and laid him on her bed. 
 
 There was a noise upon the stair outside, and with 
 her finger on her lip, she turned towards the opening 
 door and said " S-s-h-h ! " rather peremptorily to her 
 mistress. 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 205 
 
 " All right, all right, I can see he's asleep ; you 
 need not s-s-h-h me like that. Here, send one of the 
 men with this note to Mr. Book, and tell him to wait 
 for an answer." 
 
 Judith frowned like a thunder-cloud as she departed 
 on her errand, but she said nothing, not even " Yes, 
 m'm." 
 
 He had returned at last, and she had sent a little 
 note asking him to tiffen. Weeks had passed since 
 she had received Jim's last letter. He was sulking, she 
 supposed. Very good. That need not interfere with 
 her enjoyment ; and now that Bertie was back 
 
 The child upon the bed turned in his sleep and lay 
 with his face towards her. 
 
 " Upon my word," said Lucy aloud to herself, " I 
 positively love Bertie." 
 
 The baby's eyes were still shut, but he fidgeted 
 about on the bed and muttered to himself something 
 that sounded like " tonee, tonee." 
 
 " S-s-h-h ! " said Lucy, " go to sleep and don't 
 knock about like that. Dear me, what a time Judith 
 is 
 
 Instead of doing as he was told like an obedient boy, 
 little Jim opened his eyes and stared at her. " Tonee, 
 Lalla, tonee," he said-, 
 
 " S-s-h-h ! " said Lucy again, and she patted him. 
 This, instead of soothing him, woke him outright. 
 He struggled up on to his knees, and looking at Lucy, 
 began to cry dismally. She picked him up and set 
 him on her knee. Then he lifted up his voice and 
 fairly yelled. 
 
 " Oh ! bub, bub," he said, as well as his choking 
 
206 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 voice would let him ; " oh, Lalla, Lalla, tonee, 
 to-n-ee-ee ! " — and he writhed and wriggled on Lucy's 
 lap, and refused to be comforted. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by tonee, you naughty 
 little boy ; be quiet, do ! Well, then, if you will go, 
 go ; " and she set him on his legs upon the floor. 
 
 Crying all the way, he staggered across the floor 
 and made for the door. After many swerving 
 divergences out of his true course and much perilous 
 oscillation of his small person, he gained the door 
 without a fall, and holding on to it for support, cried, 
 " Tonee, tonee ; oh, bub, bub, Lalla," with a whole 
 world of woe in every syllable and an ocean of distress 
 in every sob. 
 
 But relief was close at hand. A step sounded on 
 the stair outside, the door opened, and Judith snatched 
 him up in her arms and covered his face with kisses. 
 
 " What is it, baby boy ? " 
 
 " Tonee, Lalla, tonee," he moaned, only half com- 
 forted. His ideas this time were perfectly collected, 
 and his purpose fixed. 
 
 Judith looked about on the floor for the elephant 
 brooch ; found it under the chair where it had fallen, 
 and gave it to him. His cries ceased; he held his 
 "tonee" tightly in his hand, and in ten minutes was 
 sound asleep again in Judith's arms. 
 
 Lucy had watched the various phases of the whole 
 performance with some interest. 
 
 " How did you know he wanted that ? " she asked, 
 indicating the brooch. 
 
 " I knows hevery think he wants," said Judith, with a 
 disdainful sniff. 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 207 
 
 " But how ? " 
 
 " By watchin' of him, by bein' with him night an' 
 day, day an' night ; by teachin' him as well as I can — 
 I never had but one child o' me own, and he died — an' 
 by learnin' of him, too. Children ain't to be under- 
 stood by every now and then just a-lookin' at 'em; 
 they're wiser than we thinks for, an' they takes a deal 
 o' knowin'." 
 
 This was the rude way in which Judith sometimes 
 addressed her mistress, leaving out all her usual 
 " m'ms," and filling their rightful places with frowns. 
 Lucy had often scolded her elderly handmaiden for the 
 brusqueness of her manner, and on one memorable 
 occasion had threatened her with dismissal. But 
 the scoldings had been barren of result ; and as to the 
 threat, Judith had simply smiled at it, saying she 
 was under " the Capting's orders " as commanding 
 officer and paymaster in one. Judith was one of Jim's 
 hobbien, and Lucy knew that it was of little use 
 writing to him complaining of her conduct. She had 
 tried the effect of doing so more than once, and as she 
 never got any redress, was forced to fight her own 
 battles with indifferent success, put up with affronts, 
 or hotly resent them, only to be laughed at, as some- 
 times happened, and stomach many indignities, all for 
 the sake of a pig-headed husband's foolish whim. Not 
 that she really wanted Judith to go— Mrs. Foresight 
 was a valuable woman in many ways, and one not 
 easily replaced — but she wished her to know her 
 position. With this object in view, she had solicited 
 Jim's assistance, quarrelled repeatedly with Judith 
 herself, and, latterly, treated her with silent contempt 
 
208 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 when she was inclined to be impertinent. On the 
 present occasion she swept from the room with haughty 
 indifference to her last remark. 
 
 Within an hour her note to Mr. Rook was answered 
 by that gentleman in person. They had a delightful 
 little tiffen together, and then rode down to the 
 gymkhana and watched the races side by side, with 
 every one looking at them. Lucy was supremely happy, 
 and conscious of looking her very best. 
 
 Mrs. Lovejoy came up to her smiling, and Lucy 
 wondered what unpleasantness was in store for her 
 behind that smile. 
 
 " Glad to see you back, Mr. Rook," said charming 
 little Mrs. Lovejoy " and how is your husband, 
 Mrs.Yraille?" 
 
 " Oh, all right," said Lucy, 
 
 Mrs. Lovejoy opened her eyes a little as if in 
 surprise, and said, " So glad to hear it — some one told 
 me just now he was very ill ; but of course you ought 
 to know. Charming day, is it not ? " and away she 
 fluttered. 
 
 " Of all the spiteful little painted things I ever came 
 across," said Lucy, as she and Bertie rode homewards 
 through the pines and rhododendrons, " that Mrs. Love- 
 joy is the spitefullest and most painted." 
 
 Mr. Rook laughed. 
 
 " Never mind her, Lucy," he said ; " you can afford 
 to forgive a little spite, and her jealousy is as natural 
 as — well, her complexion is not. Look ! there's a 
 sunset for you." 
 
 It was a gorgeous evening. The Himalayas were 
 bathed in a flood of gold. Above and below the pine- 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 209 
 
 tops bowed and swayed in the gentle air, and the little 
 waterfalls that tumbled over the mossy rocks and 
 sparkled amid the bracken soothed the senses with 
 their whispering plash. Under the leafy heights of 
 classic Jakkho they drew rein to admire the view. It 
 could not but appeal to the least observant of nature's 
 beauties. Range after range of purple mountain, bank 
 upon bank of fleecy cloud, stretched before them out to 
 the horizon, and there the perpetual snows drew a long 
 white line across the background of the picture. 
 
 " It's lovely," said Lucy, with a long-drawn sigh. 
 " I should so like to see the snows quite close." 
 
 " Would you ? You shall. The very thing. We'll 
 make up a party and go. How lucky you thought of 
 it ! We will have a ten-days' picnic in Elysium — the 
 last and best picnic of the -season, the last before I 
 leave — leave for good, you know, Lucy dearest." 
 
 They talked over the project as they rode home — the 
 home, that is, that Jim had provided for Lucy and paid 
 the rent of through the bank. They discussed it in 
 earnest that evening and for the next ten days. At 
 the end of a fortnight it was all settled, merry little 
 party and all. Lucy was delighted. 
 
 Nothing occurred to mar her prospective pleasure, 
 until the day before that settled on for the start. 
 Then, at last, she received a letter from Jim. It was 
 brusque and short ; he was coming home, he said, on 
 sick leave. It was too bad. But as she reflected that 
 the picnic would in all probability be over before 
 he could arrive — he mentioned no date— she decided 
 that his letter should not spoil her pleasure and 
 that of other people. She stuffed it into the drawer 
 
 vol. i. p 
 
210 JAMES TRAILLE. 
 
 where the rest were, and said nothing about it to 
 any one. 
 
 There was a great deal of packing to be done, but as 
 most of it had fallen to Judith's share, that good lady, 
 tough as she was, was not sorry to see the cavalcade 
 depart. She was, moreover, glad of an opportunity to 
 overhaul little Jim's wardrobe, which had fallen into a 
 state that had caused many a battle royal between 
 herself and her mistress. With scissors and needle 
 and a large roll of calico, she set herself to work, and a 
 week of comparative rest and absolute peace slipped 
 away. But on the afternoon of the eighth day, a 
 telegram, addressed to Mrs. Yraille, caused her great 
 disquietude. Not knowing where her mistress was, 
 further than that she was on a roving tour in the 
 interior, she despatched a syce with the telegram, 
 telling him to run with it along the road toward the 
 snow mountains as fast as his legs could carry him, and 
 not to stop until he had delivered it into the 
 mem-sahib's own hands. 
 
 The syce grinned and departed, running like a mad- 
 man — until he was out of sight. 
 
 But out of sight was not out of mind so far as 
 Judith was concerned. That telegram weighed upon 
 her spirits, and she was inclined to be melancholy in 
 her discourse with little Jim. A heavy day had 
 passed — and another — and she had put him to bed. 
 
 " Ah ! baby boy," she said as she sat beside his 
 little cot, working at an insignificant-looking bit of a 
 shirt, " if you only knew, if he only knew — daddee, as 
 yer will call him, though I've told yer times and times 
 it's dadda. You sleep there in yer foolish little 
 
PINES AND RHODODENDRONS. 211 
 
 ignorance, an' he, maybe, is fightin' still, or lyin' sick 
 in hospital — if tbere be sich things as hospitals in 
 them foreign parts — or dead, for all they know or care. 
 Or maybe he'll soon be comin' home ; an' Lalla, as yer 
 calls her, bless yer ! don't know now whether she be 
 glad or sorry." 
 
 No servant in the house could tread like that ! 
 None of them wore boots, and those were heavy boots ! 
 Who w T as it ? 
 
 Judith was no coward, but when the door opened 
 and a grey-haired, black-bearded man, dressed in very 
 shabby yellow clothing, walked into the room, she 
 could not find her voice to ask him what he wanted. 
 
 "Is no one about? Am I to break into my own 
 house as if I were a thief? Where's Lucy — Mrs. 
 Vraille, I mean ? What, Judith, don't you know 
 me?" 
 
 " Lawks-a-mercy, no, sir, I did not ! Oh, master, 
 how you've changed ! " 
 
 p 2 
 
212 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 HOME, 
 
 Changed ? Yes, he was changed ! A month or two 
 of intermittent fever changes most men. It makes 
 them shaky in the legs, stiff in the joints, hollow-eyed 
 and cheeked, sallow-complexioned ; it rarely leaves 
 them without carrying off with it all superfluous 
 flesh, and sometimes gives them a stoop in the 
 shoulders, until they get their lost strength back 
 again. Yes, Jim was certainly changed. 
 
 " No one came to meet me/' he said. " I was 
 disappointed. All the day through I had looked 
 forward — I had expected, I mean, to be met, as I had 
 sent a telegram. I wanted a pony to ride, and had to 
 borrow one. I did not even know the way, you see. 
 But it doesn't matter." 
 
 Judith did not answer, and he did not seem to 
 expect an answer ; his eyes had wandered to the bed, 
 and walking across the room, he stood beside it, looking 
 at the sleeping child. 
 
 Fcr a time, that seemed to Judith interminably long, 
 he stood there without speaking. At last he looked 
 up and whispered softly, "Is this the little bit of a 
 thing I left behind ? Why, Judith, he has grown out 
 of all knowledge " 
 
 " Yes, sir, he be growed ! " said Judith, in a foolish, 
 
no ME. 213 
 
 constrained sort of way, as if she were feeling the 
 whole situation exceedingly uncomfortable. 
 
 " When'll he wake up ? " whispered Jim. 
 
 " Not till to-morrow, I hopes, sir." 
 
 " Oh, not till to-morrow, won't he ? Walk about a 
 bit and talk now, can he ? Good boy, is he ? " 
 
 " Lor, sir, yes ; very good boy indeed ! " said Judith, 
 promptly ; " but yer see, sir, yer musn't wake him up 
 by talkin'." 
 
 " No, no, of course not," said Jim ; " I'll go away 
 now. Good-night, little chap — see you to-morrow ! " 
 He stole across the room on tip-toe, stepping high and 
 looking very absurd in his endeavours to move noise- 
 lessly. When he had reached the door, he turned 
 and beckoned to Judith. " Where shall I find Mrs. 
 Vraille ? " he whispered. " I saw no one about the place 
 when I came in." 
 
 " She's out," said Judith ; " but if you go down to 
 the drawin'-room and wait for five minutes, I'll get 
 yer somethin' to eat. You must want it bad; you 
 look so worn and tired like." 
 
 He descended the stairs, making as little noise as 
 possible, found his way back to the drawing-room, 
 through which he had already passed in his search 
 about the house, and flung himself upon a sofa, for he 
 was, as he muttered to himself, " dead beat ! " 
 
 He had travelled a hundred miles in a dhoolie, 
 scarcely knowing how the clays went ; he had been 
 shaken to pieces in tongas and gharries ; he had spent 
 thirty hours in the train, thinking it a haven of 
 luxury, although the thermometer had averaged some 
 ninety-five degrees the whole time. He had lost nearly 
 
214 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 the whole of his kit through moth and rust and fish 
 insect and red ant — through the carelessness of others 
 and his own helplessness — and was wearing the 
 kharkee clothing that had been sweated through and 
 through a thousand times, with a shabby old shooting- 
 coat thrown over it. He had travelled eighty miles 
 that day ; foot by foot he had risen out of the sweltering 
 heat into the delicious atmosphere of the hills ; he had 
 galloped homeward along the Mall on a borrowed pony 
 — only to find that she was out. He looked about him 
 and saw that the room he was lying in was tasteful in 
 the extreme ; and yet he was ungrateful enough to feel 
 disappointed. 
 
 Judith put her head in at the door. " Yer bearer's 
 come," she said, " with some o' yer things. If yer'll 
 come along o' me, I'll show yer yer room. By the 
 time yer ready for dinner, it'll be ready for you ; least- 
 ways somethin' '11 be ready, for there ain't much in 
 the house." 
 
 Mrs. Foresight was usually a silent woman, as Jim 
 very well remembered, and he was rather surprised 
 at her present volubility. She kept up a running fire 
 of comment and small-talk as he followed her across 
 the hall, and gave him no opportunity of making 
 any remarks on his own account. But, by dint 
 of " speaking through her," he at last managed 
 to squeeze in the questions he was most anxious to 
 put. 
 
 " Where's your mistress ? How long has she been 
 out ? "When do you expect her back ? " 
 
 " There, that's the door, sir," said Judith, taking not 
 the slightest notice ; " I've put yer clean towels an' 
 
no me. 215 
 
 soap an' 'ot water, an' if yer wants anythin', yer've 
 only got to shout, as I shall be in here seem' to yer 
 dinner." 
 
 All this struck Jim as rather strange. Lucy had 
 often complained to him of Judith's rudeness, and he 
 began to think that she had just cause of complaint. 
 But there was that in Judith's demeanour that seemed 
 to indicate that his arrival was totally unexpected. 
 Moreover, there were no servants about the house ; no 
 signs of preparation for him, much less of welcome. 
 Where could Lucy be ? It was too late for any 
 afternoon entertainment, too early for an evening one, 
 unless it were a dinner-party ; and surely she would 
 not have dined out on the very evening of his return 
 without leaving some sort of message. She had gone 
 to meet him, and had missed him in the dark — that 
 was it, probably. 
 
 In the dining-room he found a cold collation 
 awaiting his attentions, and attacked it with vigour. 
 Then he took a good pull at a brandy-and-soda, and 
 felt altogether happier. But all this time he had been 
 waiting upon himself ; and just as he was beginning 
 to vow vengeance on Lucy's khitmatgars, Judith 
 appeared with a couple of poached eggs. 
 
 ""Why are you bringing in those things yourself? " 
 he asked. " Where are the servants ? " 
 
 " They are gone with mistress — that's the truth. 
 I did not want to bother yer with a lot o' talk directly 
 yer come home, but Mrs. Vraille's gone on an expedition 
 inter the interior, and took most o' the servants with 
 her ; that's how it is." 
 
 " Gone on an expedition ? With whom ? " 
 
216 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 " Mrs. Palmira, most like, though I did not see her ; 
 and Mrs. Lovejoy was of the party." 
 
 " How long have they been gone ? " 
 
 " About a week." 
 
 " Then she ought to have had my letter before she 
 started ? " 
 
 Judith did not answer. 
 
 " And the telegram ? " 
 
 " I sent that on, sir." 
 
 " Oh," said Jim, dreamily, " you sent that on ? 
 When do you expect Mrs. Vraille back ? " 
 
 " To-morrow or next day," said Judith, mendaciously, 
 for she had no grounds for making such an assertion. 
 
 " Oh, that's it, then," he said, with an air of relief, 
 helping himself to a poached egg ; " she thought she 
 would be back in time — any way the telegram will 
 fetch her back to-morrow or next day. You sent it by 
 a runner, I suppose r " 
 
 " Yes, sir, the quickest runner in the stable." 
 
 " Do you mean you gave it to a syce to take ? 
 Humph ! Well, it doesn't matter. Tell me, Judith, 
 has Mrs. Vraille been well and strong all the time 
 I've been away ? " 
 
 Judith hastened to reassure him. " Oh, yes, sir, 
 perfectly well, never had a day's sickness that I knows 
 on." Somehow her answer did not seem to have the 
 effect intended. He sighed rather wearily, and then 
 began talking about the child. She gave him all the 
 information he required, which took a considerable 
 time, and then left him, " to see," as she said, " after 
 the airin' o' the sheets." 
 
 He strolled back into the drawing-room, feeling 
 
home. 21 7 
 
 lonely in his own Louse, and when his bearer had 
 brought him a pair of slippers, flung himself upon the 
 sofa again, and lighted a pipe. A pipe ! A pipe had 
 not desecrated that sanctum since Lucy had called it 
 a boudoir, though many a cigarette had been consumed 
 amid its dainty etceteras by admirers of its taste and 
 elegance. 
 
 The fumes from his pipe rose up and up ; he watched 
 them idly, moving neither hand nor foot. He was 
 dog-tired. He had come a long, long way to reach his 
 home, and now that he had reached it there was not a 
 soul but this hard- faced servant to welcome him — even 
 his child was sound asleep. When he had left the 
 camp, Dr. Dick had pulled aside the curtain of his 
 dhoolie and bade him God-speed. " You'll do well 
 enough now, old fellow," he had said — Jim could recall 
 every word — '* and a very little home-nursing will set 
 you on your legs again." Others beside Dr. Dick 
 had come to bid him good-bye, for he had been a sort 
 of celebrity in the canip, because of the convoy 
 business. Did he wish himself back again, after all — 
 back in that infernal hospital among the flies, where 
 day after day he had lain in a sort of stupor, listening 
 to their incessant buzz, and where night after night he 
 had imagined his body to be a log of wood w 7 hich it 
 was his bounden duty to roll over with his hands, but 
 could not ? No ; of course he washed no such thing ! 
 And yet Dr. Dick had been very kind, as kind — yes, 
 he supposed the simile was a good one, since everybody 
 used it — as kind as a woman. " I went full of ambition 
 — full of ambition," he mused, speakiug to himself as 
 there was no one else to talk to ; and he felt talkatively 
 
218 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 inclined. " My ambition has been more than fulfilled, 
 and now I have come back Ah, Lucy darling, little 
 did I think when I wrote you that long letter of 
 complaint what the next four-and-twenty hours had in 
 store for me ! Poor old Dare ! I wish now I had not 
 abused him so much. It was unkind of Dick to say 
 that the worst turn he ever did me was to die just 
 — well, well, he's gone, and it can't be helped. How 
 Dick did hate him ! So did I once, and I'm sorry." 
 
 His pipe went out, and he got up to knock the ashes 
 into the fire-place before refilling it. On the mantel- 
 piece he saw a photograph of himself taken in 
 England. It stood in front of a looking-glass. From 
 the face in the little gilt frame to that reflected in the 
 mirror his eyes wandered to and fro. 
 
 " Well ! " he said at last, " I need not be surprised 
 that Judith did not recognise me at first." Then he 
 looked at the photographs of the other people who 
 ornamented the mantelpiece. Herbert Eook in a frock- 
 coat ; Herbert Eook in a shooting-jacket. 'Bah! 
 I never cared for that chap ! " he said, as he turned his 
 back upon the fire-place. Herbert Eook looked at 
 him from a small work-table. Then, as his eyes 
 roamed round the room, they fell upon the handsome 
 face in two or three other places. " A gallery of him," 
 said Jim, and he started on a tour of inspection. 
 
 Upon every table, what-not, bracket, shelf, were 
 photographs, nearly all of them of Lucy. She had, it 
 appeared to Jim, been taken in every conceivable pose, 
 and in every imaginable costume. He gazed long and 
 earnestly at each, trying to make up his mind which 
 picture represented the beautiful features to their 
 
HOME. 219 
 
 fullest advantage, and fancied that that in which she 
 and Herbert Kook had been taken together in riding- 
 dress had caught her most charming expression. 
 
 Thus passed James Vraille's first evening at home ; 
 and only too glad of the excuse of having nothing to 
 do, he went to bed. 
 
 He slept late, and did not breakfast until nearly ten 
 o'clock. That meal disposed of, he had thoughts of 
 visiting the nursery ; but not liking to obtrude himself 
 on Judith's domain, drew a chair into the verandah 
 and. sat looking at the misty mountains as he smoked 
 his pipe. He could see the tonga-road winding away 
 into the distance, and was trying to follow its intricacies, 
 when the noise of pattering feet on the board flooring 
 of the verandah made him turn his head. 
 
 Near the corner of the house stood a little figure, 
 something little more than a foot and a half high. 
 
 " Hallo, little chap ; come here and let's have a look 
 at you ! " 
 
 He leant forward and held out his arms. 
 
 Little Jim did not budge ; his round eyes stared 
 at the bearded man unblinkingly, fixed and steadfast ; 
 his small body swayed unsteadily, and one finger pulled 
 down the corner of his mouth. 
 
 " Can't you walk, little chap — only stand ? Will 
 you be frightened if I come and fetch you ? " 
 
 A hoarse voice from behind the angle of the house 
 whispered — " Say daddee, baby ; say it quick for 
 Lalla." 
 
 Vraille probably thought it good policy not to notice 
 this stage direction from the prompter, and as if 
 unconscious of it, continued his persuasions, but with- 
 
220 JAMES VEAILLE. 
 
 out making any visible impression. Then a thought 
 struck him, and taking a large silver watch from his 
 pocket, he touched the spring and opened the back. 
 This performance he repeated two or three times, 
 blowing on the watch so as to make it appear that that 
 was the sesame of the phenomenon. The experiment 
 told ; the attraction was irresistible ; and by slow and 
 very unsteady degrees little Jim approached nearer 
 and nearer, Yraille going on with the performance as 
 if his life depended on it. 
 
 When the boy had arrived at measurable distance, 
 Jim held out the watch to him and said, " Blow ! " 
 
 Puffing out his cheeks as he had seen Jim do, the 
 boy blew. Mirabile dictu ! The watch opened. His 
 face expanded ; his eyes dilated ; he laughed a fat little 
 laugh, and said — " 'Gain." 
 
 " Again, I suppose you mean. Come on, then. Here 
 it goes again. Now — blow ! " 
 
 Pouff! The same result. The same chuckle. 
 
 " Now come and sit on my knee and try. Come on, 
 my man, I would not hurt a hair of your head for ten 
 thousand pounds ! " 
 
 The child looked up into his face with that intense 
 expression of profound thought that lends childhood 
 the momentary air of age, and gives its complete 
 ignorance the transitory appearance of unutterable 
 sagacity. Then, in a flash, it was all gone. The child 
 was a child again ; the child's face smiled, and the 
 child's voice suddenly exclaimed — 
 
 " Daddee ! " 
 
 " My boy — my little chap ! '' 
 
 The victory was won — the victory that so few know 
 
HOME. 221 
 
 how to set about to win — so easy for some, yet so very 
 bard for others. 
 
 Jim, as he watched the cherub mouth blowing at the 
 watch, felt a lump rise in his throat. Why was it that 
 the sight of the boy made him feel sad, when all the 
 time it was filling him with happiness ? As he felt 
 the feather-weight upon his knee, he longed to hug it 
 to his heart, but dared not for fear of frightening the 
 boy — his boy — his own son. As he felt the tiny 
 fingers cling tightly to one of his own, a thrill shot 
 through his frame — such as he had never before 
 experienced in his whole life. 
 
 Judith's rugged countenance presently appeared 
 from behind the house-corner, and a lesson in experi- 
 mental philosophy occupied Jim's attention for the 
 next half-hour. The watch was opened and re-opened 
 a thousand times. It was dropped and picked uj) again ; 
 it was listened to in silence, pushed away in petulance ; 
 it was handled with the delicate yet awkward touch 
 of little Jim's small fingers ; it was sucked, and very 
 probably seriously damaged — but what did that 
 matter ? Vraille listened to the unintelligible language 
 of his child, and strove to understand it as diligently 
 as in former days he had striven to master the 
 Hindustani grammar. 
 
 " I shall know better what he means a week hence," 
 he said to Judith. 
 
 '• Lor, sir, he can tell that as well as you or me. I 
 knowed he'd come to yer of his own accord, if let 
 alone. Children knows what's what — though 'taint 
 my place to say so — better than most grow'd folk." 
 
 " I never thought, you know," said Jim, looking up 
 
222 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 with something of his son's simplicity in his smile, 
 " that I cared for babies. When I was a young fellow, 
 Judith, I never thought about anything but pleasure 
 — pleasure — pleasure. I never found it — upon my 
 soul I don't believe I ever found it real, you know, 
 until to-day. The idea of babies is associated in a 
 man's mind with sickness and crying and dribbling ; 
 but this little chap is clean and healthy-looking, and 
 isn't sick, and smells nice, and never cries. Hallo ! " 
 
 Not too fast James Vraille ; you have a lot to learn 
 yet ! The child's nether lip had sunk, displaying only 
 very few teeth ; the happy face was puckered into 
 many distressful wrinkles ; the wide-open eyes had 
 closed, and the cheerful voice of a moment ago was 
 giving forth a series of the most dismal wails. Jim 
 was quite unable to account for this sudden mani- 
 festation of grief, and looked perplexedly at Judith ; 
 but Judith, without assigning any cause for it, snatched 
 the boy up in his arms, and carried him off into the 
 house with many mumbled expressions of endearment. 
 
 Vraille's occupation for the time was gone, and 
 leaving word where he was to be found should Lucy 
 return while he was out, he sallied forth to the Head- 
 quarter Office to report himself and make sundry 
 inquiries concerning his leave. The staff official at the 
 office greeted him cordially. 
 
 " Let me congratulate you on your promotion to a 
 home station, Vraille," he said, " and on other matters 
 that have reached us — unofficially as yet. There was 
 some hitch about the recommendation, I hear ; but no 
 doubt it will come in time ? " 
 
 Instead of answering the implied question, Major 
 
HOME. 223 
 
 Vraille blushed. He knew what the hitch was ; he 
 knew, moreover, that it was a very serious hitch, one 
 that destroys many hopes, defeats many objects, and 
 upsets many calculations — death ; and so he stammered 
 out his thanks for the other's congratulations, applied 
 for a few weeks' leave pending his embarkation for 
 England, and took his departure. 
 
 As he strolled along the Mall, he noticed that many 
 nicely-dressed people stared at him, some of them even 
 whispering as he passed, and turning to stare after 
 him. He was aware that his appearance was not all 
 that might be desired, and on his way to the Club 
 called at a tailor's to order a suit of clothes. The 
 tailor, who was also a dressmaker, seemed very pleased 
 to see him, and after taking his measure, mentioned a 
 small outstanding account of Mrs. Vraille's. 
 
 " Well, send it in," said Jim. 
 
 " Yery good, sir, I will; I will address it to you, if 
 you will allow me." 
 
 "As you please," Jim replied, wondering what the 
 man meant. 
 
 Finding some acquaintances at the Club, he stayed 
 there to lunch, registered his name for election, and 
 strolled home again. But Lucy had not returned; and 
 after the passage of a few compliments between him- 
 self and little Jim, he went back to the Club as;ain 
 and tried to read the papers; but he felt lonely and 
 ill at ease — he could settle to nothing until his wife 
 returned. He longed to see her. Sick of movement as he 
 was, and much as he wanted rest, he wandered about 
 and could not rest. His heart was full, and aching 
 to be relieved of its long-borne burden ; his tongue 
 
224 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 itched to tell her of his successes ; his very arms 
 seemed useless until they had held her in their embrace. 
 He could find no peace, and rather than spend his time 
 alone he spent it at the Club. 
 
 But it was not all dreariness. The next morning, 
 after breakfast, little Jim, with his hair brushed and 
 in a clean pinafore, made his appearance, and the silver 
 watch was again produced. The old performance was 
 repeated several times with great effect ; but it palled 
 at last, and the watch was put away — "to by-by," as 
 little Jim said. 
 
 Then the conversation took several jumps and turns 
 in all kinds of unexpected directions, until it finally 
 settled down more or less steadily to the subject of 
 natural history. The child lectured, the man took notes 
 — mental ones. Little Jim, seated on big Jim's knee, 
 with an open book on the subject before him, proceeded 
 to demonstrate his remarks with a fat inch-and-a- 
 quarter fore-ringer, while his pupil listened attentively. 
 
 He bubbled and spluttered and cooed and crowed ; 
 he struggled with words that would not come, and 
 passed on to others, repeating a few favourites many 
 dozen times before he could make up his mind to part 
 with them. He turned over the pages of the book 
 furiously in his search for one particularly graphic 
 illustration of an ass which occupied more of his 
 admiration and affection than any other picture in the 
 collection — a predilection visibly accentuated by dirty 
 finger marks. When he had found the donkey, he 
 gloated over him, saying " gonkey — de-ar — gonkey," 
 over and over again in many different tones of voice ; 
 and when the " gonkey's " charms failed — always 
 
home. 225 
 
 suddenly — to attract, he turned over a dozen pages at 
 once, and called Vraille's attention to a bow-wow, or a 
 baa, or a boo, or quack-quar, but invariably returned 
 again — impulsively, and with all the eagerness of a 
 perfectly novel idea — to his old friend the gonkey. 
 
 Now this part of Jim's lesson was simple enough ; 
 but when he looked into the child's eager little face, 
 he could read there the truth of Mrs. Foresight's oft- 
 repeated remark, that " children took a deal o' knowin'." 
 There was much in that busy little brain that he knew 
 nothing of, and perhaps, study as he might, would 
 never know. There was no margin in that little mind ; 
 it was filled full of the one idea that happened to be 
 occupying it for the second. Then that idea was 
 banished, utterly banished by another. Like a flash of 
 light, the " gonkey " in the book was wholly displaced 
 by a " gickey-bird " in the air. (In the picture-book 
 the same animal was a " tweet " — why was that ?) And 
 each idea, with all its attributes, was summed up in a 
 single word ; each thought, it seemed, expressed in some 
 quaint sound. But then, when Jim had made some 
 foolish remark or other, an air of deep abstraction 
 settled on the baby face, and the man, with all his 
 knowledge, felt that it was beyond mortal power to 
 determine the silent workings of the baby mind at that 
 given moment. 
 
 ( ' Are you so simple, so pure, that you can commune 
 with the angels, my little chap ? " Vraille whispered in 
 the boy's ear during one of these fits of mental 
 abstraction. 
 
 The child laughed. The breath of the whisper had 
 tickled his cheek. It was funny.. " '(Jain," he said. 
 
 VOL. I. q 
 
226 JAMES VSAILLE. 
 
 " I would do it again lots of times, my boy, my baby 
 boy ; but Judith says you must go to sleep now for a 
 bit." 
 
 " Lalla ! " 
 
 " Yes, Lalla. Good-bye, little chap. Daddee '11 play 
 with the boy again to-morrow." (He was getting quite 
 proficient.) 
 
 But on the morrow, when the morning talk was over, 
 and the child asleep, and Lucy still not come, his stock 
 of patience suddenly gave out. " There is a pony in 
 the stable," he said to Judith, " and if Mrs. Vraille has 
 not returned within the nest two hours, I'm off to meet 
 her." 
 
 " No, sir, don't do that," said Judith with much more 
 animation than was usual with her ; " yer wants rest, 
 if ever mortal did, and yer'd much better stay quiet — 
 now, do 'ee, sir, another day or two." 
 
 " I can't stay quiet — I can't rest. No, I'll go." 
 
 Better for him had he taken Judith's advice ; but he 
 was obstinate and would not. The bracing air of the 
 hills and the healthy tonics administered by little Jim 
 had made a new man of him, and when he was fairly 
 on the road he congratulated himself upon the step he 
 had taken. Lucy was with a party, but perhaps she 
 had left it to ride on when she received his telegram, 
 and she must have received it days ago. It was no 
 distance to travel, alone even, and she had plenty. of 
 servants with her. Perhaps she had induced one of the 
 party, or even the whole of it, to hurry forward with 
 her, but he hoped she was alone. She would surely be 
 alone. Any bend in the road might bring them face 
 to face, any moment they might meet — and what a scene 
 
HOME. 227 
 
 for tlieir meeting ! Nothing was wanting to complete 
 its romance. But the day was advancing, and as yet 
 they had not met. 
 
 Late in the evening he reached the end of the first 
 stage. She was not at the dak-bungalow, as he had 
 hoped she might he ; but news of her was : Judith's 
 messenger (one of his old syces) greeted him with a 
 salaam and the intelligence that he had left the mem- 
 sahib some twenty miles further on the day before. 
 
 In case of a contingency such as this, Yraille had 
 brought with him a light equipment in a saddle-bag ; 
 and so he spent the night alone at the dak-bungalow 
 just as drearily as he would have done had he remained 
 at home another day — and far more uncomfortably. 
 However, it was the last of his solitude, and early the 
 next morning he started off, his hopes higher, and his 
 heart lighter, than they had been since his return. 
 
 But as he rode on and on his hopes sank, his heart 
 became heavier, with each succeeding mile. The stage 
 was a short one, usually coupled with the last by the 
 homeward bound. By starting moderately early she 
 could easily have reached home in the one day ; and 
 yet they had not met. What could have happened to 
 detain her ? 
 
 Pressing his pony forward as quickly as possible, 
 with his anxiety increasing every minute, he reached 
 the next dak-bungalow sooner than he expected. Not 
 a sign of her. 
 
 He flung himself off his pony and questioned the 
 khansamah waiting in the doorway to receive him in 
 a way that made that worthy Mahometan press his 
 hands together beforehis faceand call Vraille " Defender 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 of the poor " and " Father of the afflicted " a dozen 
 times before being able to find any more sensible remark 
 to make. 
 
 He answered at last. The sahib people were his 
 patrons ; they had slept and breakfasted under his 
 humble roof ; they had given the order for tiffen ; they 
 were eating the air among the mountains. 
 
 Vraille uttered a curse and strode away. 
 
 He searched through glen and dale and nook, high 
 and low, on this side and on that ; he clambered up one 
 path and down another, he wandered along the banks 
 of an enticing stream, he pushed aside the branches 
 of a delightful wood, and stopped. Yoices, though he 
 could see nothing. Three strides further on and he 
 reached the brow of a leafy hill, and looked down, only 
 for a second or two. But in that second or two he had 
 seen and heard enough. 
 
 " You damned villain ! " 
 
 Mr. Herbert Eook picked himself up and rushed at 
 his assailant, only to fall a second time with the blood 
 streaming from his mouth. 
 
 James Vraille, with heaving breast and the eyes of a 
 madman, turned to his wife, and in a short, quick breath 
 told her to go on before him to the house. 
 
 And so, at last, they met. 
 
 " The ten minutes are up. Your jampan has gone 
 on. Your horse is waiting. Come." 
 
 " B-ut — b-ut — I — haven't — packed," sobbed Lucy. 
 
 " Packed ! Do you think I intend to wait while you 
 pack — now. Come." 
 
HOME. 220 
 
 " But I must- 
 
 " Come, I say," thundered Vraille ferociously. " I 
 will not speak again." 
 
 She was frightened into submission, too frightened 
 to speak another word. In five minutes more she was 
 in the saddle riding beside a sullen, silent brute of a 
 man. For a time her sobs were the only sounds that 
 broke the silence ; but even they ceased at last, and 
 still he did not speak. Mile after mile of this con- 
 tinued wretchedness, unbroken by a single word, and 
 then a halt. 
 
 " You will lunch here, and then go on in your jam- 
 pan," he said, slinging himself awkwardly out of his sad- 
 dle, and coming to her side to help her to dismount. 
 
 " Jim," she exclaimed, looking down at him, " you 
 look positively horrible. Oh, why did you come poking 
 and prying about ? " 
 
 " Ah ! why indeed ! But we have no time to waste. 
 Dismount, please. Go in, now, and eat. I will wait 
 here." 
 
 In less than half an hour they were on the road 
 again, with their chances of conversation considerably 
 reduced. Barely was the road wide enough to admit 
 of the jampan and the pony travelling side by side, and 
 in such places where it was, Vraille took no advantage 
 of the opportunity, but kept behind. A long, wretched, 
 silent journey. The day waned, the sun sank, the 
 darkness of night enveloped them ; and when they had 
 reached the Mall at last, Lucy turned and asked him 
 suddenly if he were dumb. 
 
 He made no answer, but brought his pony along- 
 side her jampan. 
 
230 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 " Have you nothing to say ? " she asked. 
 
 " Nothing yet," he answered. 
 
 And so they reached their home. Lucy hurried into 
 the house, and Jim, calling a couple of her jampanees 
 to help him, scrambled out of the saddle on to the 
 ground as best he could. His legs were cramped and 
 stiff; the three stages had been more than enough to 
 overtax his strength. When the natives had disappeared 
 in the darkness, he followed his wife into the house, 
 and, making his way to the drawing-room, dropped into 
 a chair 
 
 "Now," said Lucy, "perhaps you will have the 
 kindness to speak." 
 
 " To-morrow," he said. 
 
 " No, now ! I have had time to think. You have 
 created an awful scandal. What are you going to do ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you that to-morrow. I do not wish to say 
 anything now — I am not fit." 
 
 " Oh, you are beginning to repent a little ! I thought 
 you would. When all is said and done you have made 
 a mountain out of a mole-hill, and you had no right to 
 go and strike a man in that cowardly " 
 
 " Silence ! " cried Yraille, springing to his feet. " I 
 will not listen to you. That word might have stung 
 me once, but I care nothing for it now. Gro to your room 
 and leave me, before I say anything more. Lucy — " 
 and he caught her by the wrist as she was about to 
 answer — " if you have one grain of sense in all your 
 despicable folly, leave me now, and don't say another 
 word to me to-night. Go ! " 
 
 She shrank back from him ; his face twitched, his 
 eyes glared, his hand hurt her wrist. She had always 
 
HOME. 231 
 
 dreaded his return, but she had never exnected to meet 
 a madman whose presence filled her with terror and 
 repulsion, as his did now. Keadily she hurried from the 
 room, and sent for Judith to attend to her wants. 
 
 But Judith before answering her summons came into 
 the drawing-room. She walked up to the man lying 
 rather than sitting in the arm-chair by the fireplace, 
 and, touching him softly on the arm, whispered, " Is 
 there anything I can bring you, sir ? " 
 
 He neither looked at her nor moved, but answered 
 roughly, " Yes, fetch me a brandy and soda." 
 
 Judith, whose wooden face rarely expressed emotion, 
 looked surprised ; but she did as he bade her, and, 
 placing a small table beside him, set the glass upon it. 
 He raised it to his lips, drained it to the last drop, and 
 set it down again. 
 
 " Just tell your mistress," he said, getting up and 
 stretching his arms wearily, " that I am going straight 
 to bed, as I am tired." 
 
 He was indeed tired — so tired that a long night's rest 
 would have done him all the good in the world, as the 
 saying is, and yet so tired that he could not sleep. 
 His limbs ached and his skin was hot ; he thought that 
 perhaps a return of the fever was keeping him awake, 
 especially as that old sensation of being a log of wood 
 was creeping over him. But he was so tired that, in 
 spite of will and sense of imperative duty, his hands 
 refused to do their office and roll his body over — so 
 tired that his mind could not fix itself upon the work, 
 but wandered away to other things. Some one was 
 breathing in the room ; he could hear the noise faintly 
 in a far-off corner; but it came nearer and nearer, 
 
232 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 louder and louder, until the harsh, stertorous gasps were 
 in his very ear, and the breath upon his cheek. With 
 an effort he moved, and the sound ceased. The 
 movement called his attention to his hands and feet ; 
 they were swelling, swelling to a gigantic size, and so 
 rapidly increasing in weight that they felt like leaden 
 cannon-halls ; and everything they touched was huge 
 in proportion ; the threads in the sheets were ropes, 
 the blankets iron weights, the wool upon them bayonets. 
 He was being crushed and suffocated, and he started up, 
 ninonno; off the bed-clothes. 
 
 " Oh, this will never do," he cried, jumping out of 
 bed and pulling aside the window-blind. 
 
 It was early morning, and a pearly grey mist hung 
 over the mountains. 
 
 " She is. only foolish, only vain and frivolous, and her 
 vanity and folly have been played upon by that black- 
 guard. But there is an end of all trust and confidence 
 — the better parts of love. I wonder if she is asleep." 
 
 He threw a dressing-gown over his shoulders, and 
 crept — like a thief, as he had said to Judith — through 
 the silent house and into his wife's room. She was 
 asleep — peacefully asleep. 
 
 " Ah ! beautiful — too beautiful to be anything but 
 good. Yet, Lucy, I wish you were not beautiful. 
 Would that your face were plain, ugly even ! But it 
 is lovely, very lovely ! No, I will not kiss it." 
 
 He stole back to his bed again, and slept. 
 
 The khansamah salaamed low to his master as he 
 entered the breakfast-room. The sahib was rested? 
 His health good ? The mem-sahib was breakfasting in 
 her own room ; her excellency was probably fatigued. 
 
HOME. 233 
 
 Would the sahib drink tea, or would lie prefer coffee ? 
 Both were at his excellency's disposal. 
 
 The man was Vraille's old retainer ; the unctuous 
 words were familiar ; the scene might have been 
 enacted in the handsome bungalow of those gay times 
 of prosperity in the plains. The comfortable little 
 room, the one chair set at the table, the one place laid, 
 were all the same as when Judith had brought him 
 the poached eggs on the night of his return home. 
 But it was not even yesterday. It was to-day. 
 
 A pile of letters lay beside his plate. He read them 
 as he ate, but they seemed to spoil his appetite some- 
 what. He went on reading them as he sat in the 
 verandah afterwards, smoking his pipe ; and as he was 
 picking them up one by one from his lap, running his 
 eye over them for the twentieth time, and putting 
 them back in their envelopes, a pair of pattering feet 
 on the board flooring attracted his attention, and a 
 shy little voice said "Daddee ?" with a question in it : 
 
 " Judith, are you there ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," and she appeared from behind the 
 house-corner. 
 
 " Take him away, Judith ; take him away. I can't 
 play with him this morning." 
 
 The child did not recognise the voice ; it was that 
 of a strange man, so he toddled back to Judith as fast 
 as his legs would carry him, and clung to the skirts of 
 her dress. 
 
 He watched them go, and sent no kind word after 
 them ; but, thrusting his letters into his pocket, 
 muttered to himself : " I'm not fit to go near him. 
 Now — yes, as well now as later." 
 
234 JAMES VBAILLE. 
 
 " Lucy," he said, tapping at her door. 
 
 " Well, what is it ? " 
 
 " May I come in ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you like." 
 
 He turned the handle and went in. He had. done 
 better had he remained outside. But James Yraille, 
 who proverbially said the wrong thing at the wrong 
 time, with nothing but his convictions to help him, 
 blundered on, and was bound to make as many 
 mistakes as were possible under the circumstances. 
 Such men deserve, of course, to go to the wall — and 
 they usually do. 
 
 He found her lying comfortably propped up with 
 pillows on a sofa, and beside her was a small table, 
 on which was laid out a pretty little breakfast service. 
 Apparently she was in an advanced stage of toilet, for 
 her hair was dressed as if for the day, and she wore 
 an exceedingly becoming morning robe with ruffles of 
 lace about the neck. Never had Jim seen her look 
 more beautiful than she did then. 
 
 She set down her coffee-cup as he advanced and 
 stared at him. 
 
 " I have come to have a talk with you, Lucy," he 
 said, seating himself beside the table. 
 
 " Oh, I thought you were not going to talk to me 
 any more. Well, go on." Instinct told her that he 
 had come to her with submission. Now was her 
 opportunity ; he had frightened her nearly out of 
 her senses the night before, but he had calmed down 
 considerably, and she would make him repent his 
 brutality. 
 
 " It is difficult to know how to begin if you meet 
 
HOME. 235 
 
 me like that, Lucy ; but what I wish to say is, that T 
 have come to you with my forgiveness if you will but 
 express one little word of regret." 
 
 He paused, but she made no reply. 
 
 " Say you were carried away for the moment, and 
 confess to me everything that went before — just to 
 reassure me. Say your vanity succumbed to that 
 cad's flattery — say that there is no real harm clone 
 — say that what happened yesterday was only the 
 folly of an impulse — that you regret it — that we can 
 begin life anew from to-day — say you are sorry — 
 say anything " 
 
 He was getting more excited as he went along. 
 Why should she say any of these things ? He had 
 pried upon her. He had spoilt her pleasure, and 
 broken up her happiness ; and beside ■ 
 
 " But for Heaven's sake say something ! " he burst out. 
 
 " How rude you are ! " 
 
 " Yery likely. I don't know. I did not come here 
 to see you drink tea and eat toast. I did not expect 
 to find you silent." 
 
 " You would not speak to me yesterday." 
 
 " I had nothing to say. You ought to have much ; 
 and your reply to me should require no consideration. 
 Tell me, now, Lucy, that you are sorry for your share 
 in this wretched business, and I will take you about 
 with me among these people and laugh at them 
 instead of allowing them to laugh at — at — us." 
 
 Laugh at them ! She, the idol of them all, to be 
 " taken about " among them, and by a man who was 
 a scarecrow — a man whose name by this time was 
 upon every one's lips as a sort of brawler. 
 
206 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 " What you say is simply preposterous," she said. 
 " I don't want to be taken about, and, though I have 
 done what you seem to think is very dreadful, it is 
 your own fault. You leave me, you neglect me, you 
 don't try to understand me, and are surprised if other 
 men admire me more than you do. At any rate, I 
 have not made a show of myself as you have. Are 
 you not sorry for your share ? " She had made him 
 angry at last. 
 
 " Yes, I am ; I am sorry I did not cut his face in 
 ribbons with my whip, instead of hitting with my 
 hand, as if he were a gentleman." 
 
 " Jim, you are a perfect brute." 
 
 But she had not calculated on raising his anger to 
 such a pitch, and she began to feel sorry she had 
 spoken. 
 
 " I think I am," he thundered, bringing his fist 
 down on the table and making the crockery rattle. 
 " I think you are making a brute of me. Listen ! I 
 stayed awake last night trying to make up my mind 
 to forgive you. I felt I could, if I had anything — 
 anything to look forward to in the future. "What is 
 the good of success to me now ! I am promoted. I 
 am ordered home." 
 
 " Are you ? Where to ? Oh, I don't want to go 
 home." 
 
 " You must, whether you like it or not ; and I can 
 remember the time when you did not want to come to 
 India. I did my best to give you your wish then ; 
 you must comply with mine this time. We are going 
 to a very small station — right out of the world, where 
 you will be perfectly quiet. Don't look disappointed 
 
HOME. 237 
 
 like that ; it is the best thing that could happen to 
 you. You have a scandal to live down." 
 
 " But, Jim, I did not create it." 
 
 " Did you not ? Well, I did, if you like ; but all I 
 have to say is, that for rny part, if the same thing 
 were to happen to-morrow, I would do the same again 
 — and more. But it has been enough. We shall not 
 see his damned handsome face again — nor will any one 
 else for some time to come, I fancy. In a few weeks 
 we shall be quit of the whole country ; and I thought 
 — I did think that I should be able to win back your 
 old love for me when we were quite alone together. 
 But I doubt now if you ever did love me. I suppose 
 it would only be adding to my — my usual good luck 
 to inquire — but did you ? " 
 
 "I don't know — I don't think so. Do not look at 
 me like that. You have often behaved so badly to 
 me ; we never had an idea in common — and, Jim, you 
 Jcnoiv you never did appreciate me." 
 
 " No, I did not. I do now, though. I know now 
 that it is perfectly useless to appeal to your heart or 
 your sense — you have none of either. But listen to 
 me, Lucy ! Before I die I will, at least, command your 
 respect." 
 
 She began to cry a little. Would he never go 
 He frightened her terribly. 
 
 " And when you know more," he went on, " you will 
 have no occasion to be ashamed of your husband." 
 
 " But that is just it. How can I ever look Mrs. 
 Lovejoy in the face again? How can I go out? 
 How can I live cooped up in a miserable little hole 
 at home ? " 
 
238 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 " That will do," he said passionately, rising to his feet 
 and standing over her. " I have heard enough. Before 
 I married you I told you that if you felt you did not 
 love me, I would leave you then and there. You chose 
 to marry me. I have had misfortunes since : they 
 were none of my own making, but you throw them in 
 my teeth. I cannot make you love me, you say. I 
 doubt if it is your nature to love any one — even your 
 child. There was a time when this thought would 
 have well-nigh killed me. I am harder now ; I have 
 seen more of the world. And there was a time when 
 your tears would have melted me : they are freezing 
 my very heart up now — they are not shed for me, or 
 for the wrong you have done me — they are shed for 
 yourself." 
 
 Lucy buried her face in the sofa-cushions and turned 
 her back upon him ; but she left off crying. 
 
 " And perhaps," he continued, " I care more now for 
 my own honour than I do for your love. That I 
 cannot force ; but I can — and I will — make you do 
 your duty. I have seen plenty of horrors since I've 
 been away — but nothing so horrible as my own home, 
 now that I have come back. Look at these bills ! Jf 
 you had expressed one single word of regret I would 
 not have shown them to you. Look at them, I say. 
 Do you want to ruin me ? They are yours, sent to me 
 to settle. There are more of them, probably, and how 
 am I to pay them ? I shall know all that by to-morrow. 
 But what do I know now ? When I take you home 
 with me, I shall take you with the knowledge that you 
 are not to be trusted in anything— that you have 
 deceived me over and over again, and are not sorry." 
 
home. 239 
 
 The torrent of words ceased, and so silently did 
 he stand there beside her, biting his lip and twisting 
 up the papers in his hands, that, after a long pause, 
 Lucy turned her head, but instantly buried it 
 in the cushions again and shrank up closer to the 
 wall. 
 
 " No, I am not gone yet," he said in a cairn low voice, 
 bereft of every semblance of its former ferocity. " I 
 am waiting still." 
 
 Again there was a long pause, and again it was he 
 that broke it : " Very well, then ; I am going now. 
 I am going to the club — I shall lunch there. I will 
 walk about this smiling Hell " (he spoke quite calmly) 
 " and meet people. I shall make a point of meeting 
 them and of speaking to them. I am not afraid ; I 
 have done nothing to be asha " 
 
 He stopped very suddenly. There was an awkward 
 choke in his voice ; he would just wait until it was 
 gone and he could speak clearly again. It took a long 
 time to go. Once he made a half movement toward the 
 sofa, but checked it, and, after passing his hand quickly 
 across his face, for the last time broke the silence. 
 
 " Then, for the present, good-bye ; and may God 
 forgive you all the misery you have caused." 
 
 Even at the door he turned and looked back ; but 
 she had not moved. 
 
 And so, at last, they parted. 
 
 The pony was soon saddled, and Yraille led him up 
 the hill to the Mall, where he mounted and rode off. 
 He understood, as he paid numerous calls in the Bazaar, 
 why the tailor had been so anxious to send in his 
 account to himself instead of to Lucy. His eyes ached 
 
240 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 and his brain throbbed ; he could scarcely read the 
 figures that were put before him ; but he under- 
 stood that they were large enough to necessitate 
 an expensive telegram to Uncle Ben. He named a 
 round sum ; but, large as that sum was, he felt he 
 would have given a far larger, did he possess it, to sit 
 down and rest. 
 
 " I am nearly beat," he said as he held on to 
 the pummel of the saddle while his pony climbed 
 the hill to the club. I can understand what old Dare 
 felt like that night. But a good luncheon and a 
 bottle of champagne will pull me together." 
 
 He was right. In an hour he was so jocular and 
 merry, so communicative and sociable, that his friends, 
 who had at first seemed rather to avoid him, gathered 
 round him, listened to his jokes, and laughed. There 
 was not a sad face among them ; they congratulated 
 him on his good luck up at the front ; they even made 
 flattering remarks about distinguished service and 
 brevet rank ; they discussed things military from many 
 points of view — but they one and all avoided social 
 topics. 
 
 He spent his afternoon in this idle, gossiping way, 
 and returned home in time for dinner. But he might 
 as well have spared himself the trouble of return- 
 ing at all — and additional trouble meant additional 
 fatigue. One place only was laid on the dinner-table, 
 one chair only drawn up to it, one person only was 
 expected by the dignified khansamah. Lucy had left 
 word that she was spending the evening with Mrs. 
 Palmira. 
 
 She was avoiding him still. Well, it mattered little 
 
HOME. 241 
 
 now. Mrs. Palmira, with all her love of society, was a 
 shrewd woman, and one not likely to run the risk of 
 having her own reputation cast into the shade of any 
 cloud that might overshadow that of even a dear 
 friend. Lucy was in safe hands, and, on the whole, 
 it was as well that it should he as it was. But a long 
 evening was before him yet. In the dining-room there 
 was that one plate, in the drawing-room those 
 numerous smiling photographs ; anything was better 
 than solitude. He had a suit of dress-clothes some- 
 where, he would dine at the club. 
 
 There was a burlesque at the theatre that night, 
 and after dinner the club smoking-room was rather 
 deserted. He knew that Mrs. Palmira would not take 
 Lucy, but he said that he did not care for burlesques, and 
 had not engaged a seat. A rubber of whist engaged 
 his attention until his third revoke, when his partner 
 remarked that he had much better go to bed, as he was 
 looking like death. 
 
 He took his partner's advice, but he had difficulty in 
 taking it ; the road was long, the night pitch dark, 
 the lantern, bobbing up and down in the syce's hand, 
 of very little use, the effort of keeping himself in the 
 saddle almost beyond his strength. 
 
 He could hear her come in just as well from his own 
 room as from the drawing-room, and in his own room 
 he could lie down. He lay back upon his bed while 
 his bearer drew off his boots— that was a relief. 
 Help ? No, he wanted no help, the bearer could go. 
 He could not be bothered to undress — beside, he was a 
 watcher ; he was waiting up for some one. Oh, how 
 his bones ached, and his head throbbed ! How utterly, 
 
 vol. i. . R 
 
242 JAMES VRAILLE. 
 
 utterly done up lie felt .... that was not to be 
 wondered at .... no, not to be wondered at, con- 
 sidering all things .... the pillow was cool and 
 soft .... the sensation of lying down pleasant .... 
 delicious .... it was a pity he was obliged to keep 
 awake .... the night was so still .... the house 
 so 
 
 He fell into a deep, deep sleep. Worn out in mind 
 and body, he lay like the log he had so often imagined 
 himself to be, and slept on and on without a movement 
 — on and on, right through the night — on, far on into 
 the next day. And no one cared, or dared, to wake 
 him ; it was not worth while. 
 
 In the morning the khansamah's familiar words of 
 greeting were missing. But the one chair was there, 
 the one place laid, and beside it another pile of letters. 
 
 It was while he sat with one of them open in his 
 hand, looking straight before him, with a blank 
 expression of utter helplessness in his face, that Judith 
 peeped into the room. He did not see her, he did not 
 move, and she crept away. In half an hour's time she 
 came again ; he had moved only to rest his elbow on 
 the table and his head in his hand, and this time she 
 stole into the room. 
 
 " Master," she said, " is there anything I can do ? " 
 
 He looked up. 
 
 " I drove her from the house — I — I ! I thought she 
 was with Mrs. Palmira — I did indeed. But you know 
 more than I, perhaps, and you may as well know as 
 much. Bead — read what she says." 
 
 But he did not wait for her to read. 
 
 " All along the road home, Judith — all the time I've 
 
 19 
 
HOME. 243 
 
 been here— even yesterday — people talked to me of 
 nothing but honour, honour, honour ! " — and he 
 laughed — a loud, ringing laugh ; but it was less 
 pleasant to hear than the cry with which he killed the 
 Afghan. 
 
 It was the death-knell of his love. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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