Then he sighed, and went backward mentally. "They put one in mind of Helen's beautiful eyes," he muttered. Beautiful Helen! Bah! Stuff! I'll be fooled by no woman living! "`Shall I, wasting in despair. Die because a woman's fair? Shall I pale my cheeks with care Because another's rosy are?'" He sang softly, enjoying more and more the delicious coolness of the breeze off the river. "I'm nearly cured," he said, bitterly. "`I know a maiden fair to see, Take care! She can both false and friendly be, Beware! beware! Trust her not, She is fooling thee!'" He sang again in a low voice. "My case exactly. Oh! my dear madam. I'm afraid you will come to grief one of these days, for it is not every fellow who will give you up as I do, and hide his wound under a smiling face. "And do I give her up?" he said, softly; and there was a tender, dreamy look in his eyes as he spoke. "Bah! what a madman I am!" he cried, with a mocking laugh; "she throws me over as she has thrown over others. What an idiot I was not to see all this sooner! "The old story--the old story," he muttered. "Man's vanity and woman's pride. I was conceited enough to think that, though she might trifle with others, I was her one special choice. There was no such other man upon the earth as I, Captain Hilton, the Apollo among his fellows. Serve me right!" he cried passionately, "for a weak fool, and I deserve it all, if only to be a lesson to bring me to my senses?" Growing excited with his thoughts, he strolled down another path, leading to the lower lawn which sloped to the river. "I wonder who is with her now!" he muttered, as he gazed with lowering brow at the smooth, star-spangled stream. "What does it matter! I'll get a lesson in _nonchalance_ from old Chum! I've been fooled like the rest. I might have known that I should be, but I was conceited enough to think that I had thoroughly won her heart." He told himself that it was all over now, and smoked away viciously, sending forth great puffs of vapour, still thinking of his position. "What the dickens did that woman, the Inche Maida, mean!" he said, suddenly, as he strolled now close beside the river in complete forgetfulness of all the dangers with which it was invested by his friends. "Why, if I were a conceited fellow--well, so I am, horribly," he said, bitterly--"I should have fancied that she was making love to me. It is too ridiculous!" he exclaimed, stopping short, and seeing nothing but introspectively, hearing nothing but the echoes of his own thoughts. "This place is growing hateful to me. I shall get leave or exchange. I feel as if I could not stay here any longer, and--Hah! Help! What! Good Heav--" The rest of Hilton's words did not reach the soft midnight air, for, deep in thought, he had not seen the shadow even of the coming danger which had fallen in an instant, and his mad struggles were proving all in vain. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TEN.