Dan, meanwhile, in Lewis Gordon's office, disregardful of the lack of chairs, was kicking his heels as he sat on the table, declaring loudly that he would of a certainty break down in replying to the toast which was to be given at the Club dinner in his honour that night. What the dickens did the fellows mean by giving him a dinner? What had he ever done for any of them? What had he ever been but a reckless, insubordinate, unsteady, loafing brute, who ought to have been kicked out of the service years ago? 'I expect they know their own minds,' replied Lewis rather wearily. He had a headache; and he was telling himself it was liver when he knew quite well it was not; a most unsatisfactory denial since there is no phase of depression so unendurable as that when even a blue pill fails to hold out cheering hopes. Yet he spoke kindly and patiently also; for he must have been of base clay, indeed, who would not have recognised that Dan, transfigured as it were on the summit of his hopes, was a worthy sight in this work-a-day world, and that, in a measure, it was well to be there on the hill-top with him. 'Besides,' he added, 'I think I overheard Simpson saying something about a sick baby----' 'Oh! bad cess to the baby,' interrupted Dan, seeking refuge in an excess of Celtic recklessness. 'Sure it's a boy now, and one can't see a child die for the want of ice when your pony has four legs. More by token, it had but three for a month after, poor beast. But what's that to do with it? It isn't so much that I'm too bad. It's the world that's too good for me, and that's a fact. When I think of all you fellows who have been so good and so patient with me, my heart's broke about it entirely--and when I think of George! sure, it's only Gwen's kind face that comforts me. Oh, Gordon! what have I done that she should be going to marry me to-morrow?' So he ran on, as many another man has run on; as most men, good and true, do run on when they are just about to marry the woman they love. And Lewis Gordon sat listening to him with a headache and a pain in his heart; for the most part thinking that if Rose could only see this man, only hear him, she might not be quite so disdainful of it all; might acknowledge that, be it bad or good in its essence, this feeling did step into a man's life for the time and claim him body and soul, to the detriment of neither. And by the by,' said Dan suddenly, 'I've been meaning to ask you for a long time, but I wasn't sure if you'd like it. And now that I'm going away for good and all, and you can't get out of being my best man, I'll risk it. When are you going to marry Miss Tweedie?' 'Never,' replied Lewis firmly, roused into instant resistance. 'What put such a fancy into your head now?' 'Now?' Dan's face was a study in tender humour 'It's been in my head for the last year, and in yours too. I told Gwen so, I remember, before we went to Hodinuggur that time, and I could see by her manner she thought so also.'