o style himself "Major" was sufficient evidence to those
interested that Grantham lived by his wits; and from the fact that he
lived well and dressed well one might have deduced that his wits were
bright if his morals were turbid.

Now, the gesture of a woman piqued had called up the deathless past.
Hurrying through nearly empty squalid streets, he found himself longing
to pronounce a name, to hear it spoken that he might linger over its
bitter sweetness. To this longing he presently succumbed, and:

"Inez," he whispered, and again more loudly, "Inez."

Such a wave of lonely wretchedness and remorse swept up about his heart
that he was almost overwhelmed by it, yet he resigned himself to
its ruthless cruelty with a sort of savage joy. The shadowed ways of
Limehouse ceased to exist for him, and in spirit he stood once more in
a queer, climbing, sunbathed street of Gibraltar looking out across that
blue ribbon of the Straits to where the African coast lay hidden in the
haze.

"I never knew," he said aloud. And one meeting this man who hurried
along and muttered to himself must have supposed him to be mad. "I never
knew. Oh, God! if I had only known."

But he was one of those to whom knowledge comes as a bitter aftermath.
When his regiment had received orders to move from the Rock, and he had
informed Inez of his departure, she had turned aside, just as Zahara had
done; scornfully and in silence. Because of his disbelief in her he
had guarded his heart against this beautiful Spanish girl who (as he
realized too late) had brought him the only real happiness he had ever
known. Often she had told him of her brother, Miguel, who would kill
her--would kill them both--if he so much as suspected their meetings; of
her affianced husband, absent in Tunis, whose jealousy knew no bounds.

He had pretended to believe, had even wanted to believe; but the
witchery of the girl's presence removed, he had laughed--at himself and
at Inez. She was playing the Great Game, skilfully, exquisitely. When
he was gone--there would soon be someone else. Yet he had never told her
that he doubted. He had promised many things--and had left her.

She died by her own hand on the night of his departure.

Now, as a wandering taxi came into view: "Inez!" he moaned--"I never
knew."

That brother whom he had counted a myth had succeeded in getting on
board the transport. Before Grantham's inner vision the whole dreadful
scene now was reenacted: the