Leonard had, indeed, gone to the guard-room of the Jersey Blues, but his visit was decidedly against his inclination. He was as weary as Mrs. Bloommaert had supposed him to be--weary of the Bourbons, and of the passionate fratching about them; weary of men, and of women also; weary of companionship of all kinds; weary of noise and strain of the restless city; weary of life itself. Vital and large as his nervous force was, it had become exhausted; feeling had wasted it, and disappointment been equally depleting. He resolved when he turned from the Bloommaert house to go direct to his rooms in the City Hotel and seek in solitude and sleep a renewal of strength and hope. On the steps of the hotel an old acquaintance accosted him, and Leonard rather reluctantly asked “if he had come to see him?” “Yes,” answered the man. “I am in trouble, Mr. Murray, and I could think of no one but you to give me some advice. It is about Miss Martin. You remember pretty Sarah Martin? We were engaged, and she has broken the engagement. I am very unhappy. I do not know what to do. I think you can tell me.” “I am going to my rooms now. Come upstairs with me, McKenzie.” “I cannot. I must be back at the guard-room in half an hour. Will you not go with me? We can talk there well enough.” Then Leonard went with McKenzie, and after the little formalities with the men present in the guard-room were over, Leonard and McKenzie took chairs to an open window and began their consultation. And very soon Leonard threw off his lassitude and became heartily interested in his friend’s trouble. Suddenly a voice, blatant and dictatorial, fell upon his consciousness. It was the voice of a man who had been a member of the company raised by Leonard, and who during the whole term of its service was a source of annoyance and disputing--a man of low birth and of a mean, envious nature, who had neither a good education nor good breeding, and, indeed, who affected to despise both. Leonard’s youth, beauty, fine culture, and fine manners, added to his great wealth and popularity, roused at once Horace Gilson’s envy; and envy in the close companionship of a military fort quickly grew to an almost uncontrollable hatred. And in Gilson’s nature hatred had its proper soil; he was insensible to the nobler qualities of humanity, and persuaded himself--and other of his kind--that Leonard’s gracious forbearance was not the fine courtesy of an officer to his subordinate, but the fear of a timid and effeminate spirit. Indeed, Leonard’s three months’ service had been made an hourly trial by the hardly concealed mockery and contempt of Horace Gilson. Of all men in the wide world he was the very last Leonard wished to see. He moved his chair a little nearer to McKenzie, and by so doing faced the open window only. McKenzie continued talking, unmindful of Gilson’s entrance, but Leonard heard above all he said the sneering taunt and scoffing laugh of the man he despised and disliked.