heroic in the case of a high-spirited, quick-tempered girl; and since her arrival in Khemistan had been wont to assure herself that “after the voyage, one could be angelic anywhere.” Perhaps she saw reason to repent of this hasty assurance just now, as she sat facing her husband across a table littered with letters and papers which had formed part of the mail brought that morning by the steamer. Sir Dugald, a small fair man, with the colourless skin which becomes parchment-like instead of red under the influence of an Eastern sun, was still buttoned up in his uniform,--a fact of itself not calculated to improve his temper,--and punctuated his remarks by swinging one spurred heel rhythmically to and fro as he leaned back in his chair. His wife had rushed out to welcome him and pour her story into his ear in the same breath the moment that he dismounted after a long and dusty march; and he could not but be conscious that her muslin gown was tumbled and not of the freshest, her neck-ribbon awry, and her ringlets in disorder. Those ringlets were in themselves a cause for irritation. Elma Wargrave had worn her hair in severe bands of unassuming hideousness, but soon after her marriage Elma Haigh had horrified her husband by adopting ringlets, which were singularly unbecoming to her pleasant, homely face, under the delusion that he liked them. It cost Sir Dugald a good deal to refrain from proclaiming his abhorrence of the change which had been made for his sake; but he was a just man, and even at this moment of tension did his best not to allow his mind to be prejudiced by the obnoxious curls. “Surely you must see,” he was saying with studied moderation, “that you have placed me in a most unpleasant position? What if Ferrers should call me out?” “I should like to see him do it!” was the uncompromising reply. “I should just go and tell the General, and get him arrested.” Sir Dugald sighed patiently. “But look at it for a moment from Ferrers’ point of view, Elma. He is engaged to this friend of yours, Miss Andromache--what’s her name? Penelope?--and waiting for her to come out. She comes out quite ready to marry him,--trousseau and wedding-cake and all,--and you meet her at the steamer and tell her such things about him that she breaks off the whole thing on the spot, without so much as giving him a chance to clear himself.” “He drinks, he gambles, he is in the hands of the money-lenders,” said Lady Haigh tersely. “Was she to marry him in ignorance?” “I don’t for a moment say it isn’t true. But if a man had done such a thing he would have been called a brute and a low cad. I suppose a woman can go and dash all a poor girl’s hopes, and separate her from her lover, and still be considered a friend to her?” “But he wasn’t her lover, and it was her fears, not her hopes, that I put an end to.” “My dear Elma!” Sir Dugald’s eyebrows went up.