ut of his
pocket-pistol, and then he seemed to pull himself together and sat up. A
lot of people had collected round, and Mr. Vavasour asked me to come and
tell you. Oh, here he is."

"Miss Rolleston," said Jack, "Du Meresq is nearly all right again. But he
has twisted his ankle, and can't walk up the hill; so they are going to
pull him up on a toboggin. I'll go and get your sleigh."

"Are you _sure_ it is nothing worse?" said Cecil, who could scarcely
abandon her first impression that his neck was broken.

"Quite. There he is, to answer for himself," as Bertie and his bearers
crested the hill.

She walked to meet them. Du Meresq looked in pain, but cut short all
enquiries. "Wrenched my foot that's all. You want to go, don't you,
Cecil?"

"Oh, yes; as soon as possible. Lilla, Mrs. Armstrong is so far off, will
you make our adieux?" _Sotto voce._ "She is a tiresome old goose; but I
left her so abruptly just now."

"Miss Rolleston," whispered Jack, who had just brought up the cutter, "I
think I'll send up the doctor from the barracks. Du Meresq did get a
baddish cut on the head, and, if he doesn't stay in a day or two, it
might turn to erysipelas in this climate."

"Pray do. Oh, Mr. Vavasour! just tell me honestly, is not that
sometimes--fatal when it gets to the head?"

Cecil's eyes, dilated with terror, betrayed her to Jack, over whose
honest face came an expression of sympathy and intelligence.

"Of course; but we will take care of that. That's why I am sending up the
doctor, to prevent him exposing himself out of doors just yet."

Cecil did not find the drive back so agreeable as the previous one. Du
Meresq, chafing at the confinement his fast swelling foot would probably
entail, and provoked at coming to grief after Lilla's taunt was in
remarkably bad humour.

Cecil saw the state of the case, and drove on fast, philosophically
allowing him to grumble and growl without much concerning herself; but
it was almost dark before they drew up at "The Maples."

In the meantime, Colonel Rolleston, having heard from Miss Prosody that
his daughter and Du Meresq had gone off to a toboggining party, chose to
be highly scandalized, and poured into the placid ear of his wife a
torrent of disapprobation.

In vain did Mrs. Rolleston represent that they were out sleighing and
skating together most days without his objecting.

"This was quite different--this was a public party--people would say they
were engaged. He ne