The Colonel drank his luckless _protegé's_ health very gravely: he thought of him all night, travelling with the forlorn lad over the darksome sea; and sent better things than wishes after him--remembering his name, in every break of his sleep through that long night, before God, who saw the boy; and so, unseen, unaided, and ignorant of the disappointed efforts which had toiled after him, and of the one tender heart which ached over its failure, and was his bedesman, nothing else being possible, the young adventurer went away deeper into the world and his life, further into the night and the distance, and the black paths of the sea. CHAPTER XVI. The two gentlemen returned next day to Dover, to make inquiries after the fate of Sir John's telegraphic despatch, which, it appeared, had been delivered without doing any good. Roger had enlisted in a regiment of rifles: he was a famous shot, young, strong, and active--by no means such a recruit as a commanding officer concerned for the credit of his regiment would relinquish readily; and, so far as the travellers could ascertain, no notice had been taken of their communication. Then they went back to London, where Sir John, feeling himself considerably discomfited, hurried to the Horse Guards, to see what could be done at last for his unfortunate _protegé_. Having ascertained, with difficulty, the regiment in which Roger had enlisted, he discovered, with no difficulty at all, that this regiment was quite complete in its number, and that at present there were no vacancies among the officers. At present! The chances were that a few months of a Caffre war might show some difference in those full lists; but a man could not purchase a prospective commission on this grim possibility. The only thing Sir John could do in the circumstances he did. There was no lack of kindness at the bottom of his heart: he wrote a kind letter to Roger, enclosing a bank-bill for a considerable amount, confessing his mortification at the consequences of his own delay, and ordering the young man, with an imperative cordiality which he felt quite justified in using, and which Roger was not likely to resist, to use the money and come home directly--at least, whether he came home or not, he was not to serve the campaign in the ranks. "If he comes home, he's not the boy I took him for," said Sir John; but he dispatched his letter, and with it a note to the major who led the detachment, and with whom he had some slight acquaintance. Having done this, the baronet's conscience was clear: he did what he could to persuade Colonel Sutherland to remain for some time in town; he himself, after what had happened, having no particular inclination to return to Milnehill. When he found the Colonel was not to be persuaded, Sir John remained by himself, finding refuge, alike from Armitage Park and the grave looks of his friend, in the London season. He had been long out of the gay world. After a week or two in town, he