s a low lean-to garret; there was a deal table and an old chair in
it, but no bed. The windows were broken; the paper hanging down in
strips. Elsley was standing before the empty fireplace, his hand in his
bosom, as if he had been startled by the scuffle outside. He had not
shaved for some days.

So much Tom could note; but no more. He saw the glance of recognition
pass over Elsley's face, and that an ugly one. He saw him draw something
from his bosom, and spring like a cat almost upon the table. A flash--a
crack. He had fired a pistol full in Campbell's face.

Tom was startled, not at the thing, but that such a man should have done
it. He had seen souls, and too many, flit out of the world by that same
tiny crack, in Californian taverns, Arabian deserts, Australian gullies.
He knew all about that: but he liked Campbell; and he breathed more
freely the next moment, when he saw him standing still erect, a quiet
smile on his face, and felt the plaster dropping from the wall upon his
own head. The bullet had gone over the Major. All was right.

"He is not man enough for a second shot," thought Tom quietly, "while
the Major's eye is on him."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Vavasour," he heard the Major say, in a gentle
unmoved voice, "for this intrusion. I assure you that there is no cause
for any anger on your part; and I am come to entreat you to forget and
forgive any conduct of mine which may have caused you to mistake either
me or the lady whom I am unworthy to mention."

"I am glad the beggar fired at him," thought Tom. "One spice of danger,
and he's himself again, and will overawe the poor cur by mere civility.
I was afraid of some abject methodist parson humility, which would give
the other party a handle."

Elsley heard him with a stupefied look, like that of a trapped wild
beast, in which rage, shame, suspicion, and fear, were mingled with the
vacant glare of the opium-eater's eye. Then his eye drooped beneath
Campbell's steady gentle gaze, and he looked uneasily round the room,
still like a trapped wild beast, as if for a hole to escape by; then up
again, but sidelong, at Major Campbell.

"I assure you, sir, on the word of a Christian and a soldier, that you
are labouring under an entire misapprehension. For God's sake and Mrs.
Vavasour's sake, come back, sir, to those who will receive you with
nothing but affection! Your wife has been all but dead; she thinks of no
one but you, asks for no one but you. In God's