Major Carden sat over the breakfast which his daughter had prepared for him. He had been unusually late the night before, and showed it in the additional pinkness of his cheeks and the slightly red rims under his eyes. Not that he was feeling much the worse for the previous evening's pleasure; indeed, in his philosophical moments, the Major was fond of speculating which was the wiser--to take his fill of enjoyment's cup with its concomitants in the morrow of suffering and tribulation, or abandon such courses, however delightful. One mode of life was jolly to a point, but, on the other hand, the man who exercised prudence and some measure of control had a compensation in his economy. As a matter of fact, the Major never had been economical. "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" summed up his religion to its fullest extent. After a stimulant he knew he would be himself again, so he ate his breakfast with a zest that was truly amazing after the carousal of the night. For Major Carden always appeared to be in the best of health and spirits. Beyond his impecuniosity he had little to trouble him, and at the moment things appeared to be going very well indeed. He saw his way to make money out of Phillips, and had also been offered a roving commission on the Continent to purchase horses for the Army. This would entail his being away for three or four months, but his travelling allowance was liberal, he would put up at the best hotels, and enjoy himself in a manner consonant with his mission and dignity. He would tell his daughter that he was going abroad on some journalistic commission, for the Major, to do him justice, would have been loth for Alice to know all the expedients he resorted to in earning his precarious living. His love for his daughter was the one wholesome spot in his otherwise shady existence. He had been a selfish man all his life, had spent his own fortune and his wife's, and had broken the heart of that unhappy woman in a gentlemanly way. There had been no violence, no open unkindness, but the refinement of neglect that undermines health and spirit. When the crash finally came the Major removed to London with his young daughter. He told her just as much as he considered necessary, with the consequence that she regarded him as one of the best and most self-denying of men. Alice had few friends, and none knew anything about the Major's means, so that the journalistic fiction remained unassailable, and Alice could speak freely of her father as adding high intellectual qualities to his other gifts. His frequent late absences from home were explained in this way, and if he never said anything definite about his work, his diffidence might be attributed to natural modesty.