"At Targai!" exclaimed Jim Airth, surprised into betraying his astonishment. Then at once recovering himself: "Ah, yes; of course. Seven months. I was there, you know." But, within himself, he was thinking rapidly, and much was becoming clear. Sergeant O'Mara! Was it possible? An exquisite refined woman such as this, bearing about her the unmistakable hall-mark of high birth and perfect breeding? The Sergeant was a fine fellow, and superior--but, good Lord! _Her_ husband! Yet girls of eighteen do foolish things, and repent ever after. A runaway match from an unhappy home; then cast off by her relations, and now left friendless and alone. But--Sergeant O'Mara! Yet no other O'Mara fell at Targai; and there _was_ some link between him and Lord Ingleby. Then, into his musing, came Myra's soft voice, from close beside him, in the darkness: "My husband was always good to me; but----" And Jim Airth laid his other hand over the one he held. "I am sure he was," he said, gently. "But if you had been older, and had known more of love and life you would have done differently. Don't try to explain. I understand." And Myra gladly left it at that. It would have been so very difficult to explain further, without explaining Michael; and all that really mattered was, that--with or without explanation--Jim Airth understood. "And now--tell me," she suggested, softly. "Ah, yes," he said, pulling himself together, with an effort. "My experience also misses the Best, and likewise covers ten long years. But it is a harder one than yours. I married, when a boy of twenty-one, a woman, older than myself; supremely beautiful. I went mad over her loveliness. Nothing seemed to count or matter, but that. I knew she was not a good woman, but I thought she might become so; and even if she didn't it made no difference. I wanted her. Afterwards I found she had laughed at me, all the time. Also, there had all the time been another--an older man than I--who had laughed with her. He had not been in a position to marry her when I did; but two years later, he came into money. Then--she left me." Jim Airth paused. His voice was hard with pain. The night was very black. In the dark silence they could hear the rhythmic thunder of the waves pounding monotonously against the cliff below.