foolish scrapes. At present the husband and wife are very
fond of each other, but a girl who marries at fifteen hardly
knows what she likes.

When she wrote this passage, Miss Eden might have been a Sibyl, for
her words were to become abundantly true.

IV

Except when on active service, officers of the Company's Army were not
overworked. Everything was left to the sergeants and corporals; and,
while Thomas Atkins and Jack Sepoy trudged in the dust and sweated and
drilled in their absurd stocks and tight tunics, the commissioned
ranks, lolling in barracks, killed the long hours as they pleased.

Following form, Captain James (the Afghan business had brought him a
step in rank) did a certain amount of tiger-shooting and pig-sticking,
and a good deal of brandy-swilling, combined with card-playing and
gambling. As a husband, he was not a conspicuous success. "He slept,"
complained Lola, feeling herself neglected, "like a boa-constrictor,"
and, during the intervals of wakefulness, "drank too much porter." The
result was, there were quarrels, instead of love-making, for they both
had tempers.

"Runaway matches, like runaway horses," Lola had once written, "are
almost sure to end in a smash-up." In this case there was a
"smash-up," for Tom James was not always sleeping and drinking. He had
other activities. If fond of a glass, he was also fond of a lass. The
one among them for whom he evinced a special fondness was a Mrs.
Lomer, the wife of a brother officer, the adjutant of his regiment.
His partiality was reciprocated.

One morning when, without any suspicion of what was in store for them,
Mrs. James and Adjutant Lomer sat down to their _chota-hazree_, two
members of the accustomed breakfast party were missing. Enquiries
having been set on foot, the fact was elicited that Captain James and
Mrs. Lomer had gone out for an early ride. It must have been a long
one, thought the camp, as they did not appear at dinner that evening.
Messengers sent to look for them came back with a disturbing report.
This was to the effect that the couple had slipped off to the Nilgiri
Hills and had decided to stop there.

The next morning a panting native brought a letter from the errant
lady addressed to her furious spouse. This missive is (without
explaining how he got it) reproduced by an American journalist, T.
Everett Harre, in a series of articles, _The Heavenly Sinner_: "I
suggest," runs an extract, "you come to yo