ething grumpily, and, discovering that his
favourite pipe must have been left in his own den, he escaped from Lady
Drummond for a while.

As a matter of fact, his mind had been plotting mischief. He did not
care so much that it was against the Dowager, if it had not been that
the memory of his dead brother came in to complicate things. And, after
all, his plotting seemed to have come to naught. He had gone so far as
to invite young Langrishe to dinner for a specific occasion, without
result. The young man had written to say that he had effected his
exchange into the --th Madras Light Infantry, and would be so very much
occupied up to the time of his departure that he feared dining out was
out of the question.

The General had known he was going away. He had known it before he
received that letter, before he had seen it in the Gazette. He had known
from the day the regiment had gone by without Captain Langrishe in his
wonted place. He had felt with his arm about his girl's shoulders the
sudden shock that had passed through her. So she had not known either.
He had not prepared her. There was not an understanding between them. He
saluted as light-heartedly as ever to all appearance, but he did not
look at Nelly. Nor did he make any remark on the change in the regiment.

After that day the passing of his "boys" ceased to be the old joy to
him. Something was gone out of the ceremonial. It took all his _esprit
de corps_ to pretend to himself as well as to others that he felt no
difference. He felt the limpness and dejection in Nelly. He saw that her
roses had faded, that she walked without the old joyous spring. He heard
her no longer talking to the dogs, trilling to the canary. It was
January now, and raw, cold weather. It seemed as though the sunshine had
vanished from the house for good. The General had been wont to say that
the cheerfulness of his house was within it, not without it. He had come
home from London fog and rain with a happy sense of its bright fires and
spaciousness, its carpets and furniture, not so new that a muddy foot or
a stray shower of tobacco-ash was a thing to be feared--old friends
every one of them. The love and loyalty within his doors were something
that came out to welcome the General's home-coming like a sudden
firelight streaming out into the black night.

Now his little girl was unhappy, and the shadow of her unhappiness was
over his nights and days. It was when he felt this that he had w