"You see?" he said. "A commission won from the ranks in the hardest service known to soldiers, won without advantage of name, or friends, or money. Won just by myself. That is what I strove for. If I could win that I could come back to you with a great pride. I should be no longer the man who was no good. You yourself might even be proud of me. I used to dream of that--to dream of something else." His voice softened a little, and a smile for a moment relaxed the severity of his face. "Of what?" she asked. "Out there among the sand hills, under the stars at night, I used to dream that we might perhaps get hold again of the little house in Deanery Street, where we were so happy together once. We might pretend almost that we had lived there all the time." He spoke in a voice of great longing, and Millie was touched to the heart. She looked at Tony through her tears. There was a great longing astir within her at this moment. Was that little house in Deanery Street still a possibility? She did not presume to hope so much; but she wished that she could have hoped. She pressed the letter which she held against her breast; she would have loved to have held it to her lips, but that again she did not dare to do. "At all events, you did succeed." she said; "I shall be glad to know that. I shall always be glad--whatever happens now." "But I did not succeed," Tony replied. "I earned the commission, yes!--I never held it. That letter was given to me one Monday by my colonel at Ain-Sefra. You mentioned a song a minute ago, do you remember?... I had lost the associations of that song. I laughed when you mentioned it, and you were surprised. I laughed because when I received that letter I took it away with me, and that song, with all that it had ever meant, came back to my mind. I lay beneath the palm trees, and I looked across the water past the islands, and I saw the lights of the yachts in Oban Bay. I was on the dark lawn again, high above the sea, the lighted windows of the house were behind me. I heard your voice. Oh, I had got you altogether back that day," he exclaimed, with a cry. "It was as though I held your hands and looked into your eyes. I went back towards the barracks to write to you, and as I went some one tapped me on the shoulder and brought me news of you to wake me out of my dreams." Just for a moment Millie wondered who it was who had brought the news; but the next words which Tony spoke drove the question from her mind. "A few more weeks and I should have held that commission. I might have left the Legion, leaving behind me many friends and an honoured name. As it was, I had to desert--I deserted that night." He spoke quite simply; but, nevertheless, the words fell with a shock upon Millie. She uttered a low cry: "Oh, Tony!" she said.