Her few hours' acquaintance with Windebank had ruffled the surface of the deep, unexplored waters of the girl's passion, which, rightly or wrongly, caused her to surrender her personal preferences and to regard the matter entirely from the man's point of view. This self-abasement was, largely, the result of the girl's natural instincts where her affections were concerned; these had been reinforced by the sentimental pabulum which enters so much into the fiction that is devoured by girls of Mavis' age and habit of thought. She argued how it would be criminally selfish of her to presume on his boyish attachment of the old days, which might lead him to believe that it was a duty for him to extend to his old-time playmate the lifelong protection of marriage. Her lack of personal vanity was such that it never once occurred to her that she was eminently desirable in his eyes; that he wished for nothing better than for her to bestow herself, together with her affections, upon him for lifelong appreciation. She resolved to stifle her inclinations in order that the man's career should not suffer from legal companionship with a portionless, friendless girl. Her unselfish resolutions faltered somewhat when, in resuming the weary search for chances of employment in the advertising columns of the newspapers, she came across the following, which was every day repeated for the remainder of the week:-- "To M...s, who foolishly lost herself in the fog on the night of last Thursday. She is earnestly urged to write to me, care of Taylor & Wintle, 43 Lincoln's Inn Fields. Do not let foolish scruples delay you from letting me hear from you." She had got as far as writing a reply, but could never quite bring herself to post it. A miserable Sunday had urged her to send it to its destination; the chance purchase of a Sunday paper decided the letter's, and, incidentally, her own fate. In it she read how, owing to threatened disturbance on the Indian frontier, Sir Archibald Windebank, D.S.O., would shortly leave Aldershot by S.S. Arabia with a reinforcing draft of the Rifle Brigade.