'The friend equally of you and of poor Jack Beverley, whom I laid in his grave, far, far away, I felt all the awkwardness of my position when that bitter rivalry arose between him and you about Ida Collingwood,' said Trevor Chute, and the usually lively Jerry, who seemed lost in thoughts which the voice and presence of his friend had summoned from the past, walked slowly forward in moody silence. He was recalling, as he had too often done, the agony of the time when he first began to learn--first became grimly conscious--that the tender eyes of Ida sought to win glances from other eyes than his, and ask smile for smile from other lips too! And when desperately against hope he had hoped the game would change, and oblivion would follow forgiveness--but the time never came. Jerry could recall, too, the sickly attempts he had made to arouse her pique and jealousy by flirting with Evelyn Desmond and other girls, but all in vain, as the sequel proved. She had become so absorbed in Beverley as to be oblivious of every action of the discarded one, and almost careless of what he thought or felt. But now, though Beverley was dead and had found his grave on a distant and a deadly shore, it was scarcely in human flesh and blood for Vane--even jolly Jerry Vane--to forgive, and still less to regret him as Trevor Chute did, though he affected to do so, on which the soldier shook his hand, saying: 'You are indeed a good-hearted fellow!' But Vane felt that the praise was perhaps undeserved, and to change the subject, said-- 'She has been to a certain extent getting over Beverley's death.' 'Getting over it?' 'Of course.' 'How?' 'By becoming more composed and settled; no grief lasts for ever, you know,' replied Vane, a little tartly; 'but now your return, your special visit to her, and the mementoes you bear, will bring the whole thing to the surface again, and--and--even after six months of widowhood--may----' 'Will make matters more difficult for you?' interrupted Trevor Chute, smiling. 'Precisely. I am a great ass, I know; but I cannot help loving Ida still.' 'You will accompany me to the Collingwoods' to-morrow, Jerry?' urged the soldier, after a pause. 'No, old fellow, decidedly not. Ida's grief would only worry me and make me feel _de trop_. What the deuce do you think I am made of, Trevor, to attempt to console the woman I love when she is weeping for _another_?' 'Dine with me at the club this evening, then--sharp eight--and we'll talk it over.' 'Thanks; and then we shall have a long "jaw" together about all that is and all that _might_ have been; so, till then, old man, good-bye.' CHAPTER II. TREVOR CHUTE'S REVERIE.