"What else should I do? You know my object now. I have to re-establish myself in my wife's thoughts. How else can I do it? What professions are open to me in which I could gain, I don't say distinction, but mere recognition? I am not a money-maker; that, at all events, is evident. I have had experience enough during the last months to know that if I lived to a thousand I should never make money." "I think that's true," Chase agreed, thoughtfully. "Luckily there's no longer any need that I should try. What then? Run through the professions, Chase, and find one, if you can, in which a man at my age--twenty-nine--with my ignorance, my want of intellect, has a single chance of success. The bar? It's laughable. The sea? I am too old. The army? I resigned my commission years ago. So what then?" He waited for Chase to speak, and Chase was silent. He waited with a smile, knowing that Chase could not speak. "There must be an alternative," Chase said, doubtfully, at last. "Name it, then." That was just what Chase could not do. He turned in his mind from this calling to that. There was not one which did not need a particular education; there was not one in which Stretton was likely to succeed. Soldiering or the sea. These were the two callings for which he was fitted. From the sea his age debarred him; from soldiering too, except in this one way. No, certainly, Stretton was not off his head. "How in the world did you think of the Foreign Legion?" he asked. Stretton shrugged his shoulders. "I thought of most other courses first, and, one by one, rejected them as impossible. This plan came to me last of all, and only last night. We were passing a light-ship. In a way, you see, we were within sight of home. I was in despair; and suddenly the idea flashed upon me, like the revolving blaze from the light-ship. It is a sound one, I think. At all events, it is the only one." "Yes," answered Chase, slowly; "I suppose there will be chances, for there's always something stirring on the Algerian frontier." "There, or in Siam," said Stretton. "What arrangements are you making here?" "I have written to my lawyers. Millie can do as she pleases with the income. She has power, too, to sell the house in Berkeley Square. I made my will, you know, before I left England."