as to the propriety of his trying to
become engaged to her when he was the penniless gentleman-cadet, was
there any question about it when he was the disgraced out-cast, the
publicly exposed coward?

Arrived at the London terminus he sought a recruiting-sergeant and, of
course, could not find one.

However, Canterbury and Cavalry were indissolubly connected in his
mind, and it had occurred to him that, in the Guards, he would run
more risk of coming face to face with people whom he knew than in any
other corps. He would go for the regiment he had known and loved in
India (as he had been informed) and about which he had heard much all
his life. It was due for foreign service in a year or two, and, so far
as he knew, none of its officers had ever heard of him. Ormonde
Delorme was mad about it, but could not afford its expensive mess. Dam
had himself thought how jolly it would be if Grumper "came down"
sufficiently handsomely for him to be able to join it on leaving
Sandhurst. He'd join it _now_!

He hailed a hansom and proceeded to Charing Cross, whence he booked
for the noble and ancient city of Canterbury.

Realizing that only one or two sovereigns would remain to him
otherwise, he travelled in a third-class carriage for the first time
in his hitherto luxurious life. Its bare discomfort and unpleasant
occupants (one was a very malodorous person indeed, and one a smoker
of what smelt like old hats and chair-stuffing in a rank clay pipe)
brought home to him more clearly than anything had done, the fact that
he was a homeless, destitute person about to sell his carcase for a
shilling, and seek the last refuge of the out-of-work, the
wanted-by-the-police, the disgraced, and the runaway.

That carriage and its occupants showed him, in a blinding flash, that
his whole position, condition, outlook, future, and life were utterly
and completely changed.

He was Going Under. Had anybody else ever done it so quickly?...

He went Under, and his entrance to the Underworld was through the
great main-gates of the depot of the Queen's Own (2nd) Regiment of
Heavy Cavalry, familiarly known as the Queen's Greys.

CHAPTER VIII.

TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN.

GLIMPSES OF CERTAIN "POOR DEVILS" AND THE HELL THEY INHABITED.

The Queen's Own (2nd) Regiment of Heavy Cavalry (The Queen's Greys)
were under orders for India and the influence of great joy. That some
of its members were also under the influence of potent waters is
p