blind?"

But General Feversham was already talking to his neighbours, and Harry
quietly sat down, and again propping his chin upon his hands, listened
with all his soul. Yet he was not entertained; rather he was enthralled;
he sat quiet under the compulsion of a spell. His face became
unnaturally white, his eyes unnaturally large, while the flames of the
candles shone ever redder and more blurred through a blue haze of
tobacco smoke, and the level of the wine grew steadily lower in the
decanters.

Thus half of that one hour's furlough was passed; and then General
Feversham, himself jogged by the unlucky mention of a name, suddenly
blurted out in his jerky fashion:--

"Lord Wilmington. One of the best names in England, if you please. Did
you ever see his house in Warwickshire? Every inch of the ground you
would think would have a voice to bid him play the man, if only in
remembrance of his fathers.... It seemed incredible and mere camp
rumour, but the rumour grew. If it was whispered at the Alma, it was
spoken aloud at Inkermann, it was shouted at Balaclava. Before
Sebastopol the hideous thing was proved. Wilmington was acting as
galloper to his general. I believe upon my soul the general chose him
for the duty, so that the fellow might set himself right. There were
three hundred yards of bullet-swept flat ground, and a message to be
carried across them. Had Wilmington toppled off his horse on the way,
why, there were the whispers silenced for ever. Had he ridden through
alive he earned distinction besides. But he didn't dare; he refused!
Imagine it if you can! He sat shaking on his horse and declined. You
should have seen the general. His face turned the colour of that
Burgundy. 'No doubt you have a previous engagement,' he said, in the
politest voice you ever heard--just that, not a word of abuse. A
previous engagement on the battlefield! For the life of me, I could
hardly help laughing. But it was a tragic business for Wilmington. He
was broken, of course, and slunk back to London. Every house was closed
to him; he dropped out of his circle like a lead bullet you let slip out
of your hand into the sea. The very women in Piccadilly spat if he spoke
to them; and he blew his brains out in a back bedroom off the Haymarket.
Curious that, eh? He hadn't the pluck to face the bullets when his name
was at stake, yet he could blow his own brains out afterwards."

Lieutenant Sutch chanced to look at the clock as the story ca