d it as binding, so why in thunder should
I?" He spoke indignantly, as one who had the right of complaint.

"Your ideas of honour having altered somewhat," observed Monck, with
bitter cynicism.

Dacre winced a little. "I don't profess to be anything extraordinary,"
he said. "But I maintain that marriage gives no woman the right to wreck
a man's life. She has no more claim upon me now than the man in the
moon. If she tries to assert it, she will soon find her mistake." He was
beginning to recover his balance, and there was even a hint of his
customary complacence audible in his voice as he made the declaration.
"But there is no reason to believe she will," he added. "She knows very
well that she has nothing whatever to gain by it. Your brother seems to
have gathered but a vague idea of the affair. You had better write and
tell him that the Dacre he means is dead. Your brother-officer belongs
to another branch of the family. That ought to satisfy everybody and no
great harm done, what?"

He uttered the last word with a tentative, disarming smile. He was not
quite sure of his man, but it seemed to him that even Monck must see
the utter futility of making a disturbance about the affair at this
stage. Matters had gone so far that silence was the only course--silence
on his part, a judicious lie or two on the part of Monck. He did not see
how the latter could refuse to render him so small a service. As he
himself had remarked but a few moments before, he, Dacre, was not the
only person concerned.

But the absolute and uncompromising silence with which his easy
suggestion was received was disquieting. He hastened to break it,
divining that the longer it lasted the less was it likely to end in his
favour.

"Come, I say!" he urged on a friendly note. "You can't refuse to do this
much for a comrade in a tight corner! I'd do the same for you and more.
And remember, it isn't my happiness alone that hangs in the balance!
We've got to think of--Stella!"

Monck moved at that, moved sharply, almost with violence. Yet, when he
spoke, his voice was still deliberate, cuttingly distinct. "Yes," he
said. "And her honour is worth about as much to you, apparently, as your
own! I am thinking of her--and of her only. And, so far as I can see,
there is only one thing to be done."

"Oh, indeed!" Dacre's air of half-humorous persuasion dissolved into
insolence. "And I am to do it, am I? Your humble servant to command!"

Monck stretched f