saying he had managed to get me attached as a volunteer to the --th Bombay Cavalry. The Commander-in-chief was an old friend of his, and had promised to nominate me for a commission on the first opportunity, and meanwhile I was to pick up my drill and any other knowledge that might be useful to me. This time I was fairly thrown out to sink or swim, for I had no Franks to take refuge with when I was off duty, and a pretty tough fight I found it. I got on well enough with my comrades, though there has always been a prejudice against me for entering the army by a backdoor, as they say, and it has been against me with my superiors too. And then I was not the kind of chap who makes himself pleasant and gets liked. I have always been a sort of Ishmael, and I suppose I always shall be. As for the ladies--well, I tried hard to get in with them at first to please my dear old father, who had no idea that he and poor Franks between them had made me a regular wild man of the woods. But I couldn’t do it. I could never talk of things that interested them, or pay them compliments, or do the things that it seemed natural to them to expect. One or two kind creatures did take me in hand, but they dropped me like a hot coal, and at last I gave it up. I got my commission in the end, and I told my father I meant to marry my regiment. He agreed with me, I am glad to say, for it was the last time I saw him. His _jaghir_ lapsed to the Emperor, for I was on the frontier by that time, and never meant to go back to the jungle. My chance came when it fell to me to raise the Khemistan Horse, and I knew I had found my place in the world. Sir Henry Lennox put me here, and I have given all my thoughts and every rupee I could lay my hands on to the frontier ever since. I made up my mind almost at once that I would have no married men up here. A wife was a drag to a man in such a service as this, I said, and even if she was content to endure it, it was not fair to her. Then--you know the way I was taken in about Haigh and his wife?” Penelope smiled. “Then you came,” he went on, “and you were different from any woman I had ever met. When I saw you first, I knew that you would help a man, not hinder him, in his work, and you have helped me all these months. I could talk to you of what I was doing and hoped to do, and you would understand and sympathise. You can never guess what it has been to me, and until this morning I thought there was nothing more I could want. But it is not enough. I want more.” “Don’t! don’t! oh, please don’t!” entreated Penelope, covering her eyes with her hands as he rose and stood over her.