That circumstance had surprised him, but he believed it was fully explained now by finding the ring of Sir Bevis on his wife's finger, and he became transported with fury. Alice cowered for a time beneath the expression she read in his face. Could it be possible, he thought, that she was proving as one of the 'dead-sea apples of life, which a mocking fate so often throws in our lap, charming to the imagination, but bitter to the sense?' 'Duncan!' said Alice, softly and imploringly; but he felt all the mute despair of a broken heart, the agony of a shaken faith, and he put her soft white hands gently from him, as if he would never seek them in this life again. He at once sought the presence of the brigadier, who, on hearing what he had to say, certainly--to do him justice--was rather bewildered. 'I beg leave, sir, to return to you this ring,' said Duncan, tossing it contemptuously on the table. 'My ring--my wife's ring it was--' '_Was_--eh!' 'Yes, Captain Cameron. Where did you find it?' 'Where you placed it, I doubt not.' 'I do not understand your tone and manner, Captain Cameron; but I certainly placed it on the finger----' 'Of my wife,' said Duncan, hoarsely and scornfully. 'I thank you for your kind attention, but trust that it will end here ere worse come of it. I am not a man to be trifled with, Sir Bevis.' Now, Sir Bevis had no dislike to be thought 'a gay Lothario, a sad dog, and all that sort of thing,' so he actually simpered provokingly, shrugged his shoulders and said, deprecatingly, 'Really, you wrong Mrs. Cameron.' 'She has deceived me!' exclaimed Duncan, furiously. 'If a woman can't deceive her own husband, _whom_ may she deceive!' asked the unwise brigadier. 'In the days of the pistol this matter would not have ended here.' 'Come, come, don't let you and I fall to carte and tierce in this fashion,' said the general; 'it may be explainable----' 'I want no explanations!' 'As you please. It seems there is a little romance in most lives----' 'With your grey hairs you should have outlived all that, I think.' Now his years proved a sore point with old Sir Bevis, and he became inflamed with anger; but, ere he could retort, Duncan had jerked his sword under his left arm and swept from his presence with a rather withering expression in his face, and that very evening saw Alice in the train for Delhi, _en route_ to Europe. 'Innocent, I suffer all the shame and all the agony of guilt! Oh, it is hard, Duncan--very, very hard,' were the last words she said, brokenly, to her husband, who heard her with a stern silence that astonished her.