‘I think I shall go to my lodgings to-day instead of staying here over these pictures,’ said Dare, after a silence during which Captain De Stancy endeavoured to calm himself. ‘I was going to tell you that my dinner to-day will unfortunately be one of herbs, for want of the needful. I have come to my last stiver.--You dine at the mess, I suppose, captain?’ De Stancy had walked away; but Dare knew that he played a pretty sure card in that speech. De Stancy’s heart could not withstand the suggested contrast between a lonely meal of bread-and-cheese and a well-ordered dinner amid cheerful companions. ‘Here,’ he said, emptying his pocket and returning to the lad’s side. ‘Take this, and order yourself a good meal. You keep me as poor as a crow. There shall be more to-morrow.’ The peculiarly bifold nature of Captain De Stancy, as shown in his conduct at different times, was something rare in life, and perhaps happily so. That mechanical admixture of black and white qualities without coalescence, on which the theory of men’s characters was based by moral analysis before the rise of modern ethical schools, fictitious as it was in general application, would have almost hit off the truth as regards Captain De Stancy. Removed to some half-known century, his deeds would have won a picturesqueness of light and shade that might have made him a fascinating subject for some gallery of illustrious historical personages. It was this tendency to moral chequer-work which accounted for his varied bearings towards Dare. Dare withdrew to take his departure. When he had gone a few steps, despondent, he suddenly turned, and ran back with some excitement. ‘Captain--he’s coming on the tenth, don’t they say? Well, four days before the tenth comes the sixth. Have you forgotten what’s fixed for the sixth?’ ‘I had quite forgotten!’ ‘That day will be worth three months of quiet attentions: with luck, skill, and a bold heart, what mayn’t you do?’ Captain De Stancy’s face softened with satisfaction. ‘There is something in that; the game is not up after all. The sixth--it had gone clean out of my head, by gad!’ V. The cheering message from Paula to Somerset sped through the loophole of Stancy Castle keep, over the trees, along the railway, under bridges, across four counties--from extreme antiquity of environment to sheer modernism--and finally landed itself on a table in Somerset’s chambers in the midst of a cloud of fog. He read it and, in the moment of reaction from the depression of his past days, clapped his hands like a child. Then he considered the date at which she wanted to see him. Had she so worded her despatch he would have gone that very day; but there was nothing to complain of in her giving him a week’s notice. Pure maiden modesty might have checked her indulgence in a too ardent recall.