Mabel recoiled from him, aghast. “You are trying to drive a bargain with me for Dick’s life?” she cried, in horror. “I should never have believed it of you.” “Oh, I am only looking at the matter in a business light. If I do your work, I should like to be sure of my wages.” “How can you talk in such a horrid mercenary way? It’s mean, ungentlemanly of you to try to entrap me like this! I could not have imagined----” “Please let us be business-like. Only, believe me, I had no idea of setting a trap.” “Do you mean to say that if I refuse to let you speak to me again you won’t go?” “That is not the question, allow me to remark. I ask you whether, if I go, I may enter upon the forbidden subject when I come back?” “I believe you are going whether I say Yes or No.” She looked at him sharply, but he did not change countenance in the least. “Why should you take it into your head to spoil a thing that ought to be so splendid, by tacking on an odious condition to it?” “I am afraid you won’t find it easy to move me either by hard words or soft ones. Is it a bargain?” “If you mean that I am to promise to marry you if you go----” cried Mabel, her eyes blazing. “I mean nothing of the kind. That is not in the bond. If I have such a curious fancy for being rejected by you that I am willing to accept another refusal as the price of my services on this occasion, don’t you think you are getting off rather cheaply on the whole?” Mabel laughed shamefacedly. “I believe you have only been trying to tease me all along,” she said. “Very well; it is a bargain, then.” “There’s something rather mysterious about this attempt to desert on the part of Mrs North’s servant,” said Colonel Graham to the Commissioner. “The men seem to feel strongly on the subject, but I can’t get any of them to speak out. I am not sure that it’s a case for a court-martial, and if you would join me in an informal inquiry into the affair, it might prevent bad feeling.” “With pleasure. But I don’t quite see where the civil power comes in, in a matter of this kind. Is it that the man’s status is really that of a civilian?” “He is a volunteer, of course”--Colonel Graham ignored the veiled reference to what Mr Burgrave still considered his usurpation of authority--“but as an old soldier, they all acknowledge that he is amenable to military discipline. What I can’t make out is the notion which seems to prevail that you have something to do with the matter, and that’s why I should like your assistance in inquiring into it.” “You don’t imagine that I incite your volunteers to desert, I hope?” said the Commissioner dryly, taking his seat beside Colonel Graham, to await the arrival of the prisoner.