“I have profited much by your society, Miss Walkinshaw,” I said. “You found me a boy, and what way it happens I do not know, but it's a man that's leaving you. You made my stay here much more pleasant than it would otherwise have been, and this last kindness--that forces me away from you--is one more I have to thank you for.” She was scarcely sure whether to take this as a compliment or the reverse, and, to tell the truth, I meant it half and half. “I owed all the little I could do to my countryman,” said she. “And I hope I have been useful,” I blurted out, determined to show her I was going with open eyes. Somewhat stricken she put her hand upon my arm. “I hope you will forgive that, Mr. Greig,” she said, leaving no doubt that she had jumped to my meaning. “There is nothing to forgive,” I said shortly. “I am proud that I was of service, not to you alone but to one in the interests of whose house some more romantical Greigs than I have suffered. My only complaint is that the person in question seems scarcely to be grateful for the little share I had unconsciously in preserving his life.” “I am sure he is very grateful,” she cried hastily, and perplexed. “I may tell you that he was the means of getting you the post in the regiment.” “So I have been told,” I said, and she looked a little startled. “So I have been told. It may be that I'll be more grateful by-and-by, when I see what sort of a post it is. In the meantime, I have my gratitude greatly hampered by a kind of inconsistency in the--in the person's actings towards myself!” “Inconsistency!” she repeated bitterly. “That need not surprise you! But I do not understand.” “It is simply that--perhaps to hasten me to my duties--his Royal Highness this morning sent a ruffian to fight me.” I have never seen a face so suddenly change as hers did when she heard this; for ordinary she had a look of considerable amiability, a soft, kind eye, a ready smile that had the hint (as I have elsewhere said) of melancholy, a voice that, especially in the Scots, was singularly attractive. A temper was the last thing I would have charged her with, yet now she fairly flamed, “What is this you are telling me, Paul Greig?” she cried, her eyes stormy, her bosom beginning to heave. “Oh, just that M. Albany (as he calls himself) has some grudge against me, for he sent a man--Bonnat--to pick a quarrel with me, and by Bonnat's own confession the duel that was to ensue was to be _à outrance_. But for the intervention of a friend, half an hour ago, there would have been a vacancy already in the Regiment d'Auvergne.” “Good heavens!” she cried. “You must be mistaken. What object in the wide world could his Royal Highness have in doing you any harm? You were an instrument in the preservation of his life.” I bowed extremely low, with a touch of the courts I had not when I landed first in Dunkerque.