already heated brain. For longer than they supposed Sydney had not been his real self; many and various were the causes which had been tending to make him lose his balance. Then, in that supreme moment, when he needed to keep his head more than ever in his life, he lost his balance altogether and played the fool.

"Do you think," he shouted, "that I'll condescend to deny such a charge coming from a beast like Draycott and a cur like Dodwell? I tell you what I will do, I'll take them on both together and fight them to a standstill, and choke their infernal lies back into their throats. Major Harold Reith, if I do get hold of you, I'll tear your lying tongue out by the roots."

He tried to get at the major, but of course they would not let him. For a few minutes there was a discreditable scene; Beaton behaved like a lunatic. Those who tried to keep him from attacking Major Reith he fought tooth and nail. Between them he was borne to the ground, then, as if he had been some wild beast, they had to drag him out of the room, and fling the door to in his face.

When, later, inquiries were made as to his whereabouts, he was not to be found. His room was empty. He had apparently paid a hurried visit to it. His mess uniform was on the floor. Apparently he had torn it off him and attired himself in something else. What he had done afterwards there was little to show. The sentry on duty, when closely questioned, said that Captain Beaton, in civilian dress, had passed him, reeling like a drunken man, and vanished into the night. The sentry was the last man connected with his regiment who saw him. Not a line came from him; nothing was heard; the place which had known him knew him no more. He had gone, a pariah, out into the world. He had been one of the best-liked men in the regiment; there were many who missed him; but there was one whose heart was nearly broken.

CHAPTER II
While the Groom Waited

Two days before that fatal night Sydney Beaton had gone down to see his brother, Sir George Beaton, head of the family, and practically its sole representative, in his old home at Adisham, in the County of Wilts. The visit had been of the nature of a forlorn hope. Sydney wanted help, pecuniary help, as he had done more than once before. He was in a very tight place. He had piled folly on to folly, and just lately he had surmounted the pile with the biggest of the lot. If he could not get money quickly matters would go very ill with him. Money-lenders and all those sort of people were not to be persuaded; he owed them already more 

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