h heroic efforts at self-mastery, and
stood swaying, twitching, trembling in every limb, and obviously in an
agony of terror.

"The Snake!" he said again.

"Ha!" barked General Stukeley. "Been fighting forty boa-constrictors,
what? Just had a fearful struggle with five thousand fearful pythons,
what? There'll be another Victoria Cross in your family soon, if
you're not careful."

"You are an unjust and cruel old man," stormed Lucille, stamping her
foot at the hitherto dread Grumper. "He is ill, I tell you! You'll be
ill yourself someday. He had a fit. He'll be all right in a minute.
Let him go in and lie down. It wasn't the snake at all. There wasn't
any snake--where he was. He is just ill. He has been working too hard.
Let him go in and lie down."

"Let him go to the Devil," growled the infuriated General, and turned
to such few of the guests as had not displayed sufficient good sense
and good taste to go elsewhere and resume their interrupted games,
tea, or scandal, to remark:--

"I really apologize most sincerely and earnestly for this ridiculous
scene. The boy should be in petticoats, apparently. I hope he won't
encounter a mouse or a beetle to-night. Let's all--er--come and have a
drink."

Lucille led her shaking and incoherent lover indoors and established
him on a sofa, had a fire lit for him as he appeared to be deathly
cold, and sat holding his clammy hand until the arrival of Dr. Jones.

As well as his chattering teeth and white frozen lips would allow, he
begged for forgiveness, for understanding. "He wasn't really wholly a
coward in essentials." ...

The girl kissed the contorted face and white lips passionately. Dr.
Jones prescribed bed and "complete mental and bodily rest". He said
he would "send something," and in a cloud of wise words disguised the
fact that he did not in the least know what to do. It was not in his
experience that a healthy young Hercules, sound as a bell, without
spot or blemish, should behave like an anaemic, neurotic girl....

Dam passed the night in the unnameable, ghastly hell of agony that he
knew so well and that he wondered to survive.

In the morning he received a note from Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley. It
was brief and clear:--"Sandhurst is scarcely the place for a squealing
coward, still less the Army. Nor is there room for one at Monksmead. I
shall not have the pleasure of seeing you before you catch the 11.15
train; I might say things better left unsaid. I thank