"Maidstone! why, you griff, I should think so. Don't you remember leaving us at Allahabad, after Jack Delamere died?" "By Jove, Stapylton--Stapylton, of the 14th! How are you, old fellow?" "The same;" and they shook hands, as he now recognised a brother subaltern of his old Hussar corps. "And you are here on the staff?" said Stapylton. "Like yourself; but _pro tem._ till sent off to headquarters. You came up country with her ladyship?" "Ah--yes." "Who is that lovely girl near her?" "Which?" "She in the white silk, and lace trimmed with black--a kind of second mourning I take it to be." "Oh, you needn't ask with any interested views. A proud, reserved minx is that little party; but she has been going the pace with that fellow of the Irregular Horse, to whom she is talking and smiling now, and did so all the way out overland. It was an awful case of spoon in the Red Sea, just where Pharaoh was swallowed up; and the Viceroy's wife is very anxious to make a match of it, as a plea for an extra ball." "But who is she?" "Oh, some interesting orphan." "But her name?" "A Miss Devereaux--Sybil Devereaux. I made an acrostic on it off the Point de Galle," added the ex-Hussar, as the object of their mutual interest turned at that moment casually towards them, and for the first time looked fully in their direction; and then Audley, while he almost held his breath, recognised the dark eyes, the minute little face, the firm lips, and even now could hear the once-familiar voice of Sybil; but she was talking smilingly to another; and as the words of the heedless Stapylton began to rankle in his heart, something of anger, jealousy and pique mingled with his astonishment. Another was now playing with Sybil the very part that he had done at Cabul with Rose, to the exasperation of poor Denzil, whom, for months before he really died, Sybil had schooled herself to number as among the slain in Afghanistan; hence her little jet ornaments and black trimmings, the only tribute she could pay his memory now. CHAPTER XXIV. THE LAMP OF LOVE. And this fellow of the Irregular Horse--this fellow who was so insufferably good-looking, and seemed to know it too--this interloper, for so Audley Trevelyan chose to consider him--what manner of advances had he already made, and how had she received them, on that overland route, so perilous from the propinquity and the hourly chances it affords of acquaintance ripening into friendship, and of friendship into love? Was he only to meet her unexpectedly, and, by that strange influence of coincidence already referred to, to find himself supplemented, it might be, and on the verge of losing, if he had not already--deservedly as he felt--lost her? Did it never occur to the Honourable Mr. Audley Trevelyan that, separating as they did, there were a thousand chances to one against their ever meeting again in this world, and, more than all, the world of India?