“Very well; if you will come over to Minchampstead to-morrow, I will give you letters to friends of mine in town.  I trust that they may give you a better opportunity than the Bashi-bazouks will, of displaying that courage, address, and self-command, which, I understand, you possess in so uncommon a degree.  Good morning!” And forth the great man went.

Most opposite were the actions of the two whom he had left behind him.

Tom dances about the room, hurrahing in a whisper—­

“My fortune’s made!  The secret service!  Oh, what bliss!  The thing I’ve always longed for!”

Mark dashes himself desperately back in his chair, and shoots his angry legs straight out, almost tripping up Tom.

“You abominable ass!  You have done it with a vengeance!  Why, he has been pumping me about you this month!  One word from you to say you’d have stayed, and he was going to make you agent for all his Cornish property.”

“Don’t he wish he may get it?  Catch a fish climbing trees!  Catch me staying at home when I can serve my Queen and my country, and find a sphere for the full development of my talents!  Oh, won’t I be as wise as a serpent?  Won’t I be complimented by ——­ himself as his best lurcher, worth any ten needy Poles, greedy Armenians, traitors, renegades, rag-tag and bob-tail!  I’ll shave my head to-morrow, and buy me an assortment of wigs of every hue!”

Take care, Tom Thurnall.  After pride comes a fall; and he who digs a pit may fall into it himself.  Has this morning’s death-bed given you no lesson that it is as well not to cast ourselves down from where God has put us, for whatsoever seemingly fine ends of ours, lest, doing so, we tempt God once too often?

Your father quoted that text to John Briggs, here, many years ago.  Might he not quote it now to you?  True, not one word of murmuring, not even of regret, or fear, has passed his good old lips about your self-willed plan.  He has such utter confidence in you, such utter carelessness about himself, such utter faith in God, that he can let you go without a sigh.  But will you make his courage an excuse for your own rashness?  Again, beware; after pride may come a fall.

* * * * *

On the fourth day Elsley was buried.  Mark and Tom were the only mourners; Lucy and Valencia stayed at Mark’s house, to return next day under Tom’s care to Eaton Square.

The two mourners walked back sadly from the churchyard.  “I shall put a stone over him, Tom.  He ought to rest quietly now; for he had little rest enough in this life....

“Now, I want to talk to you about something; when I’ve taken off my hatband, that is; for it would be hardly lucky to mention such matters with a hatband on.”

Tom looked up, wondering.

“Tell me about his wife, meanwhile.  What made him marry her?  Was she a pretty woman?”

“Pretty enough, I believe, before she married:  but I hardly think he married her for her face.”