Philip Marsden felt distinctly annoyed. Here was fate once again meddling with his freedom. "I'm afraid I do. To begin with, I may be lying with a bullet through me before the week's out." "So may I. Look on it as my last request, Major. I'd sooner trust you than any one in the wide world. You would be certain to do what I would like." "Should I? I'm not so sure of myself. Look here, Dick! I didn't mean to tell you, but perhaps it is best to have it out, and be fair and square. The fact is we are rivals." He laughed cynically at his hearer's blank look of surprise. "Yes,--don't be downcast, my dear fellow; you've a better chance than I have, any day, for she dislikes me excessively; and upon my word, I believe I'm glad of it. Let's talk of something more agreeable. Ah, there goes the bugle." He started to his feet, leaving Dick a prey to very mixed emotions, looking out with shining eyes over the dim blue plains which rolled up into the eastern sky. It must be a mistake, he felt. His hero was too perfect for anything else; and she? Something seemed to rise in his throat and choke him. So nothing further was said between them till on the northern skirts of the hills they stood saying good-bye. Then Dick with some solemnity put a blue official envelope into his friend's hand. "It's the will, Major. I think it's all right; I got the _bâbu_ to witness it. And of course the--the other--doesn't make any difference. You see I shall write and tell her it is all a mistake." The older man as he returned the boyish clasp felt indescribably mean. "Don't be in a hurry, Dick," he said slowly. "You can think it over and give it me when you join us, for join us you must. I won't take it till then, at all events. As for the other, as you call it, the mistake would be to have it changed. Whatever happens she will never get anything better than what you give her, Dick--never!--never! Good-bye; take care of yourself." As he watched the young fellow go swinging along the path with his head up, he told himself that others beside Belle would be the losers if anything happened to Dick Smith; who, for all the world had cared, might at that moment have been lying dead-drunk in a disreputable bazaar. "There is something," he thought sadly, "that most men lose with the freshness of extreme youth. It has gone from me hopelessly, and I am so much the worse for it." And Dick, meanwhile, was telling himself with a pang at his heart that no girl, Belle least of all, could fail in the end to see the faultlessness of his hero. CHAPTER XI.