"Not the faintest shadow of one, we were chums; I would as soon have suspected myself." "So, except for what Captain Dodwell said, which was, after a fashion, corroborated by Mr. Noel Draycott, you had no reason to suppose that Mr. Beaton had been guilty of the slightest irregularity?" "I suppose I hadn't, if you look at it like that." "You would unhesitatingly have handed the pool to Mr. Beaton, without even the slightest feeling of having been ill-used?" "Of course I would; he had won it; his hand was better than mine." "He denied having done what Captain Dodwell stated?" "Rather; as you said, he wanted to knock him down; he was as mad as a hatter." "Would you have behaved with perfect calmness in the face of Captain Dodwell's hideous accusation?" "I don't expect I should, especially as we were all of us pretty warm to begin with." "Would you want to knock a man down who said that kind of thing of you?" "You bet, I should want to kill him." "Because Mr. Beaton felt exactly as you would have done, his brother officers, chivalrous creatures, threw him out of the room--you assisted them?" "Upon my word, I hardly know what I did do, it was a regular rough-and-tumble; Beaton fought like ten wild cats. I daresay I did bear a hand." "Oh, you dare say? I congratulate you, Mr. Tickell, on the courageous assistance you lent your brother officers; was it twelve or twenty against one? They could scarcely have done without you. Cowards! And having assisted your friends in getting rid of the rightful claimant, you had no scruple in placing Mr. Beaton's money in your pocket, and, I presume, paying with it some of the more pressing debts which I understand you owed?" The young gentleman winced, the lady's thrust had gone home. "That's all I want from you, Mr. Tickell; I am obliged to you for the confession you have made. I advise you to consider your position, and to ask yourself, when you are dancing with your next partner, if a person who has behaved as you have done is entitled to show his face in such a house as this. Mr. Beaton cheated no one; he is incapable of such conduct as yours; you cheated him, having first joined yourself with some twelve or twenty of your friends to get him out of the way. Think over what I have said to you, Mr. Tickell, instead of whispering soft nothings to your partners, and remember that I shall be watching. Now you may go." CHAPTER XIV "Who is Simmons?"