Hordene told the story of the gift, which Guj heard out to the end. "Now, that's a nice sort of yarn to tell in a messroom, isn't it? They'd call it jumps or insanity," said Guj. "There's no reason in it. It doesn't lead up to anything. It only killed poor Marish and made you stick me with the mare; and yet it's true. Are you mad or drunk, or am I? That's the only explanation." "Can't be drunk for nine months on end, and madness would show in that time," said Hordene. "All right," said Guj recklessly, going to the window. "I'll lay that ghost." He leaned out into the night and shouted: "Jale! Jale! Jale! Wherever you are." There was a pause and then up the compound-drive came the clatter of a horse's feet. The red-haired subaltern blanched under his freckles to the colour of glycerine soap. "_Thurinda's_ dead," he muttered, "and--and all bets are off. Go back to your grave again." Hordene was watching him open-mouthed. "Now bring me a strait-jacket or a glass of brandy," said Guj. "That's enough to turn a man's hair white. What did the poor wretch mean by knocking about the earth?" "Don't know," whispered Hordene hoarsely. "Let's get over to the Club. I'm feeling a bit shaky." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 16: "Week's News," May 12, 1888.] A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER[17] Shall I not one day remember thy Bower-- One day when all days are one day to me? Thinking I stirred not and yet had the power, Yearning--ah, God, if again it might be! --_The Song of the Bower_. This is a base betrayal of confidence, but the sin is Mrs. Hauksbee's and not mine. If you remember a certain foolish tale called "The Education of Otis Yeere," you will not forget that Mrs. Mallowe laughed at the wrong time, which was a single, and at Mrs. Hauksbee, which was a double, offence. An experiment had gone wrong, and it seems that Mrs. Mallowe had said some quaint things about the experimentrix. "I am not angry," said Mrs. Hauksbee, "and I admire Polly in spite of her evil counsels to me. But I shall wait--I shall wait, like the frog footman in _Alice in Wonderland_, and Providence will deliver Polly into my hands. It always does if you wait." And she departed to vex the soul of the "Hawley boy," who says that she is singularly "_uninstruite_ and childlike." He got that first word out of a Ouida novel. I do not know what it means, but am prepared to make an affidavit before the Collector that it does not mean Mrs. Hauksbee. Mrs. Hauksbee's ideas of waiting are very liberal. She told the "Hawley boy" that he dared not tell Mrs. Reiver that "she was an intellectual woman with a gift for attracting men," and she offered another man two waltzes if he would repeat the same thing in the same ears. But he said: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," which means "Mistrust all waltzes except those you get for legitimate asking."