very distinct on his forehead of dark marble. "I asked
you a question."

"Yes, sir." The officer's tone bit like acid. "Why had you a pencil in
your ear?"

Again the servant's heart ran hot, and he could not breathe. With dark,
strained eyes, he looked at the officer, as if fascinated. And he stood
there sturdily planted, unconscious. The withering smile came into trie
Captain's eyes, and he lifted his foot. "I---I forgot it--sir," panted
the soldier, his dark eyes fixed on the other man's dancing blue ones.

"What was it doing there?"

He saw the young man's breast heaving as he made an effort for words.

"I had been writing."

"Writing what?"

Again the soldier looked him up and down. The officer could hear him
panting. The smile came into the blue eyes. The soldier worked his dry
throat, but could not speak. Suddenly the smile lit like a name on the
officer's face, and a kick came heavily against the orderly's thigh. The
youth moved a pace sideways. His face went dead, with two black, staring
eyes.

"Well?" said the officer.

The orderly's mouth had gone dry, and his tongue rubbed in it as on
dry brown-paper. He worked his throat. The officer raised his foot. The
servant went stiff.

"Some poetry, sir," came the crackling, unrecognizable sound of his
voice.

"Poetry, what poetry?" asked the Captain, with a sickly smile.

Again there was the working in the throat. The Captain's heart had
suddenly gone down heavily, and he stood sick and tired.

"For my girl, sir," he heard the dry, inhuman sound.

"Oh!" he said, turning away. "Clear the table."

"Click!" went the soldier's throat; then again, "click!" and then the
hail-articulate: "Yes, sir."

The young soldier was gone, looking old, and walking heavily.

The officer, left alone, held himself rigid, to prevent himself from
thinking. His instinct warned him that he must not think. Deep inside
him was the intense gratification of his passion, still working
powerfully. Then there was a counter-action, a horrible breaking down of
something inside him, a whole agony of reaction. He stood there for an
hour motionless, a chaos of sensations, but rigid with a will to keep
blank his consciousness, to prevent his mind grasping. And he held
himself so until the worst of the stress had passed, when he began to
drink, drank himself to an intoxication, till he slept obliterated. When
he woke in the morning he was shaken to the base of his nature. But he
had f