It is a drive of ten miles too, there and back, and added no small bother and waste of time to the rest of the discomforts. Then there were gaps between, when the expected Chinaman did not arrive, and the buggy came home empty; and we would turn from the verandah where we had been anxiously watching, with an opera-glass, to see if there were one figure or two in the buggy, turn into the house with the knowledge that we must cook and bake and sweep for ourselves as best we could until better times dawned. Alas, then, for a charwoman within call, however inefficient! It would be something, at least, to get the sweeping and washing-up done. (_To be continued._) [Illustration] “OUR HERO.” A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO. BY AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the Dower House,” etc. CHAPTER XXXV. THE RELEASE OF ONE. Jack’s uneasiness grew as days went by. Denham was certainly in a condition by no means satisfactory. This last heavy blow—the death of his adored Chief, of the man who had been to him as a guiding star from boyhood—seemed to have shaken his hold on life, and the old courage and energy were gone. Though he struggled on, it was in a listless fashion. Even the assurance as to Polly’s constancy could not arouse him. The lassitude which oppressed him was unconquerable. “It is so much the worse for her,” he said dejectedly to Jack. “If she could forget me, she at least might be happy. She is wasting the best years of her life in this miserable waiting. I may be out here another ten years. Or I may never go home.” “You don’t wish her to forget you, my dear fellow.” “For her sake I could be glad. Not for my own.” “Fact is, there’s no manner of use in expecting you to take reasonable views of things, while your head is in this state,” said Jack. But he became so troubled that he confided his cares to Lucille. He could not worry the Colonel or Mrs. Baron, who were anxious enough already. “I’m not at all happy about him, and that’s the solemn truth,” Jack declared confidentially a fortnight or so after his arrival. “I don’t like the look in his eyes, or here,” drawing a finger across his brow. “And as for strength, just see him this afternoon. He’s utterly floored by that stroll on the ramparts. Why, in old days he’d do his twenty or thirty miles at a stretch, and get back as fresh as he started. He didn’t know what it was to be done up.” Lucille had not the least idea why, at this point, she should find herself to be confiding to Jack a secret which she had told to nobody else. She and he were becoming extremely good friends. Jack had taken to Lucille on the spot, when they were first introduced, and the feeling was returned. Still Lucille had not meant to let anybody know what she had done. Somehow it slipped out.