There we had it, sure enough! The Major see-sawed in the air with a finger of sudden corroboration. "Rosalind Graythorpe," he repeated triumphantly, and then again, "Ros-a-lind Graythorpe," dwelling on the syllables, and driving the name home, as it were, to the apprehension of all within hearing. It was so necessary to a complete confidence that every one should know whom he was holding his tongue about. Where would be the merit of discretion else? But the enjoyment of details should be _sotto voce_. The General dropped his voice to a good sample, suggesting a like course to the more demonstrative secrecy of the Major. "I remember the whole story quite well," said he. "The girl was going out by herself to marry a young fellow up the country at Umballa, I think. They were _fiances_, and on the way the news came of the outbreak of cholera. So she got hung up for a while at Penderfield's--sort of cousin, I believe, him or his wife--till the district was sanitary again. Bad job for her, as it turned out! Nobody there to warn her what sort of fellow Penderfield was--and if there had been she wouldn't have believed 'em. She was a madcap sort of a girl, and regularly in the hands of about as bad a couple as you'll meet with in a long spell--India or anywhere! They used to say out there that the she Penderfield winked at all her husband's affairs as long as he didn't cut across _her_ little arrangements--did more than wink, in fact--lent a helping hand; but only as long as she could rely on his remaining detached, as you might say. The moment she suspected an _entichement_ on her husband's part she was up in arms. And he was just the same about her. I remember Lady Sharp saying that if Penderfield had suspected his wife of caring about any of her co-respondents he would have divorced her at once. They were a rum couple, but their attitude to one another was the only good thing about them." The General lighted his cigar, and seemed to consider this was chapter one. The Major appended a foot-note, for our benefit. "_Leave be_ was the word--the word for Penderfield. _You'll_ understand that, sir. No _meddlin'_! A good-lookin' Colonel's wife in garrison has her choice, good Lard! Why, she's only got to hold her finger up!" We entirely appreciated the position, and that a siren has a much easier task in the entanglement of a confiding dragoon than falls to the lot of Don Giovanni in the reverse case. But we were more interested in the particular story of Mrs. Nightingale than in the general ethics of profligacy.