"I can excuse your heat, sir," he replied with amazing control, "in consideration of your ignorance of the circumstances. Had things been otherwise, and it had been my privilege to criticise another's disgrace, I should probably have made use of the same forcible language that you give utterance to... When we have been through the mire we recognise a different quality in the mud. Men have been reduced to the ranks for the misdemeanour for which I was dismissed the Service... Had I been reduced to the ranks I should have made a good soldier. My punishment, I contend, was unjust." "By which specious reasoning, I presume, you excuse the crime of treachery, and seek to justify a spirit of revenge?--or gain, was it?" Lawless frowned. "I make no excuses," he returned curtly. "I don't recognise that my actions need condoning. And I did not join the Boers' side with thought either of revenge or gain..." He halted abruptly, and, for the first time taking his eyes off the other's face, stared hard at the unshaded lamp. "It appears," the Colonel interposed drily, "that you were actuated by blind impulse." Lawless drummed on the table with his fingers and said nothing. He felt strangely annoyed. And yet he had known positively that the facts must come to this man's knowledge before long. In the circumstances it was little likely that he would make no inquiries concerning one he had employed in a secret and confidential matter. That he regretted his haste in having employed him was obvious. It was the term traitor that stuck in the Colonel's gorge. He found it particularly distasteful to hold further intercourse with one so steeped in dishonour. "Perhaps it would be as well to bury the past," he said with an effort after a while. "In the lives of many men there are matters which it is not profitable to discuss. I can only add that I wish I had known of this before." Lawless got upon his feet, and stood stiffly upright, his face grim, and colourless under the sunburn, like the face of a man whose blood is at white heat with hardly repressed passion. "Am I to understand that you dispense with my services?" he asked curtly. Colonel Grey was somewhat slow in replying. Discretion weighed in the balance against a strong personal objection to working with the man, and won. "I don't know as to that," he replied at last uncertainly. "We've gone so far... You have a dangerous knowledge... I prefer to have you on our side." "I see." Lawless' manner was icy. "Then, you mean me to go on with the job?" "Yes, I think so... Yes! ... I do." "You don't ask me whether I am satisfied to go on with it." His hearer's eyebrows went up with a jerk. "Why shouldn't you?" he asked, surprised. "You're well paid." "True! The pay's good. It would be absurd to throw away good money for a scruple..."