Tainted of course…. What was it he had heard the senior soldierly-looking man, whom the other addressed as “General,” say concerning some mutual acquaintance, at breakfast in the dining-car going up to Kot Ghazi? “Yes, poor chap, was in the ranks—and no man can escape the barrack-room taint when he has once lived in it. Take me into any Officers’ Mess you like—say ‘There is a promoted gentleman-ranker here,’ and I’ll lay a thousand to one I spot him. Don’t care if he’s the son of a Dook—nor yet if he’s Royal, you can spot him alright….” Pleasant hearing for the “landed proprietor,” whom a beautiful, wealthy and high-bred girl proposed to marry! Tainted or not, in that way—he was _mentally_ tainted, a fact beside which the other, if as true as Truth, paled into utterest insignificance. No—he had taken the right line in replying to Lucille that he was getting worse mentally, that no doctor would dream of “vetting” him “sound,” that he was not scoundrel enough to come and cause scandal and “talk” at Monksmead, and that he was going to disappear completely from the ken of man, wrestle with himself, and come to her and beg her to marry him directly he was better—sufficiently better to “pass the doctor,” that is. If, meanwhile, she met and loved a man worthy of her, such a man as Ormonde Delorme, he implored her to marry him and to forget the wholly unworthy and undesirable person who had merely loomed large upon her horizon through the accident of propinquity … (He could always disappear again and blow out such brains as he possessed, if that came to pass, he told himself.) Meanwhile letters to the Bank of Bombay would be sent for, at least once a year—but she was not to write—she was to forget him. As to searching for him—he had not quite decided whether he would walk from Rangoon to Pekin or from Quetta to Constantinople—perhaps neither, but from Peshawur to Irkutsk. Anyhow, he was going to hide himself pretty effectually, and put himself beyond the temptation of coming and spoiling her life. Sooner or later he would be mad, dead, or cured. If the last—why he would make for the nearest place where he could get news of her—and if she were then happily married to somebody else—why—why—she _would_ be happy, and that would make him quite happy … Had the letter been quite sane and coherent—or had he been in a queer mental state when he wrote it?… He opened his eyes, saw a vulture within a few yards of him, closed them again, and, soon after, fell into an uneasy slumber as the camel padded on at a steady seven miles an hour unurged—save by the _smell_ of pure clear water which was still a score of miles distant…. When Damocles de Warrenne awoke, he was within a few hundred yards of the nearly dry River Helnuddi, where, failing occasional pools, the traveller can always procure water by digging and patiently awaiting the slow formation of a little puddle at the bottom of the hole.