"It's . . ." Levin hesitated, "extraordinarily difficult to say what you _did_ say. . . . I don't profess to remember long speeches to the letter. . . . Naturally it was a good deal broken up. . . . I tell you, you were talking to a young lady about matters you don't generally talk to young ladies about. . . . And obviously you were trying to let your . . . Mrs. Tietjens, down easily. . . . You were trying to explain also why you had definitely decided to separate from Mrs. Tietjens. . . . And you took it that the young lady might be troubled ... at the separation. . . ." Tietjens said carelessly: "This is rather painful. Perhaps you would let me tell you exactly what _did_ happen last night. . . ." Levin said: "If you only would!" He added rather diffidently: "If you would not mind remembering that I am a military court of inquiry. It makes it easier for me to report to the general if you say things dully and in the order they happened." Tietjens said: "Thank you . . ." and after a short interval, "I retired to rest with my wife last night at. . . . I cannot say the hour exactly. Say half-past one. I reached this camp at half-past four, taking rather over half an hour to walk. What happened, as I am about to relate, took place therefore before four." "The hour," Levin said, "is not material. We know the incident occurred in the small hours. General O'Hara made his complaint to me at three-thirty-five. He probably took five minutes to reach my quarters." Tietjens asked: "The exact charge was . . ." "The complaints," Levin answered, "were very numerous indeed. . . . I could not catch them all. The succinct charge was at first being drunk and striking a superior officer, then merely that of conduct prejudicial in that you struck . . . There is also a subsidiary charge of conduct prejudicial in that you improperly marked a charge-sheet in your orderly room. . . . I did not catch what all that was about. . . . You appear to have had a quarrel with him about his red-caps. . . ." "That," Tietjens said, "is what it is really all about." He asked: "The officer I was said to have struck was . . .?" Levin said: "Perowne . . ." dryly. Tietjens said: "You are sure it was not himself. I am prepared to plead guilty to striking General O'Hara." "It is not," Levin said, "a question of pleading guilty. There is no charge to that effect against you, and you are perfectly aware that you are not under arrest. . . . An order to perform any duty after you have been placed under arrest in itself releases you and dissolves the arrest." Tietjens said coolly: