Tancred glanced at the point of his cigar, and discovered that it was out. "May I trouble you?" he murmured. The general shoved the brasier toward him, and watched the relighting with evident solicitude. "It's the dampness," he announced. "H'm. Am I correctly informed?" Tancred gave a puff or two, and then, withdrawing the weed, he held it contemplatively between forefinger and thumb; but he answered not a word. The general knocked the ashes from his own cigar and eyed the burning coal. "H'm, let me ask you, did you write to my daughter this morning?" And Tancred, with that long-drawn breath we take when we prepare for the worst, answered shortly: "I did." To this avowal the general nodded encouragingly. Tancred, however, seemed averse to further confidences; he kept looking at his cigar as though it were some strange and uncanny thing. "H'm, well--er--did you, did you begin the letter with a term of endearment?" "Yes, general." Tancred had tossed his cigar--a cigar that ranked nearly with a Havanese--into the finger-bowl. He straightened himself and looked his host in the face. "Yes, general, and I am sorry for it. I have no excuse, not one. It was a piece of unpardonable ill-breeding. I had no right to send the note; I had no encouragement to write it. The only amend in my power is an apology. I make one now to you; let me beg that you will convey another to your daughter." The general half rose from his seat and hit the table with his fist. His face was convulsed. He was hideous. "But, bandit that you are," he cried, "she loves you." "No, general, you are wrong." "Ah, I am wrong, am I? Not an hour ago she told me so of her own accord." "General, it was a jest." "A jest! You call it a jest to surprise a girl in the dark"-- "To what?" gasped Tancred. "To what?" "There, you know well enough what I mean. I refer to the other evening." "Merciful heaven!" groaned Tancred, "it was she then that I kissed." "It is a jest to do a thing like that, to write impassioned letters, and to win a heart. Is it a jest you call it, sir, or did I misunderstand your words?" "No general, not that. What I meant was that it was impossible for Miss Van Lier to have confessed to any love for me--" The lattice at the window was thrust aside. For a second the girl's sidereal eyes blazed into the room. "He is right, father: I do not love; I hate." The lattice fell again. She had gone. During the moment that followed you could have heard a lizard move. Tancred fumbled at his collar, and General Van Lier sank bank in his chair. "Mr. Ennever," he said, at last, "you are my guest." The tone in which he spoke was low and self-restrained, but in it there was an accent that was tantamount to a slap in the face. Tancred was on his feet at once. "If you permit me, I will leave to-day." General Van Lier moved to the door. "There is a boat from Siak at five," he answered.