"Thank you, I'd rather not know; but if you're certain this move of yours is final,--that is to say if you don't want to kiss and make friends with your cousin--[Poor Dick writhed inwardly, for he had kept back the full enormity of his offence]--then I might be able to help you in getting employment. They are laying a new telegraph-line to the front, and, as it so happens, a friend wrote to me a few days ago asking if I knew of any volunteers for the work." The lad's face brightened. "Telegraphs! oh, I should like that! I've been working at them these two years, and I think--but I'm not sure--that I've invented a new--" "All right," interrupted Major Marsden brusquely; "they can try you, at any rate. You can start tonight; that settles it. Now you had better go round and get your things ready." Dick writhed again in mingled pride and regret. "I can't; I've said good-bye to them all; besides, I left a bundle of sorts in the bazaar before I went--there." Philip Marsden shrugged his shoulders, remarking that the boy might do as he liked, and went off to his work; returning about two o'clock, however, to find Dick asleep, wearied out even by a half-night's vigil of sorrow. "How soft these young things are," he thought, as he looked down on the sleeping boy, and noticed a distinctly damp pocket-handkerchief still in the half-relaxed hand. A certain scorn was in his heart, yet the very fact that he did notice such details showed that he was not so hard as he pretended. He went into the rough, disorderly room where he spent so many solitary evenings, lit a cigar, and walked about restlessly. Finally, telling himself the while that he was a fool for his pains, he sat down and wrote to Belle Stuart in this wise:-- My Dear Miss Stuart,--At the risk of once more being meddlesome, I venture to tell you that your cousin, Dick Smith, goes off to Beluchistan to-night as telegraph overseer. It is dangerous work, and perhaps you might like to see him before he leaves. If so, by riding through the church garden about six o'clock you will meet him. He doesn't know I am writing, and would most likely object if he did; but I know most women believe in the duty of forgiveness. Yours truly, P. H. Marsden. P.S. If you were to send a small selection of warm clothing to meet him at the bullock train office it, at any rate, could not fail to be a comfort to him.