One day Burker was unexpectedly absent and I took the drill, finding myself quite competent and au fait.

The same evening I went to my wife’s wardrobe, she being out, to try and find the keys of the sideboard.  I knew they frequently reposed in the pocket of her dressing-gown.

In the said pocket they were—­and so was a letter in the crude large handwriting of Sergeant Burker.

I did not read it, but I did not see the necessity of a correspondence between my wife and such a man as I knew Sergeant Burker to be.  They met often enough, in all conscience, to say what they might have to say to each other.

At dinner I remarked casually:  “I shouldn’t enter into a correspondence with Burker if I were you, Dolly.  His reputation isn’t over savoury and—­” but, before I could say more, my wife was literally screaming with rage, calling me “Spy,” “Liar,” “Coward,” and demanding to know what I insinuated and of what I accused her.  I replied that I had accused her of nothing at all, and merely offered advice in the matter of correspondence with Burker.  I explained how I had come to find the letter and stated that I had not read it.

“Then how do you know that we—­” she began, and suddenly stopped.

“That you—­what?” I inquired.

“Nothing,” she said.

At the next Sergeants’ Dance at the Institute I did not like Burker’s manner to my wife at all.  It was—­well, amorous, and tinged with a shade of proprietorship.  I distinctly heard him call her “Dolly,” and equally distinctly saw an expressively affectionate look in her eyes as he hugged her in the waltzes—­whereof they indulged in no less than five.

My position was awkward and unpleasant.  I loathe a row or a scene unspeakably—­though I delight in fighting when that pastime is legitimate—­and I was brought into daily contact with the ruffian and I disliked him intensely.

I was very averse from the course of forbidding him the house and thus insulting my wife by implication—­since she obviously enjoyed his society—­and descending to pit myself against the greasy cad in a struggle for a woman’s favour, and that woman my own wife.  Nor could I conscientiously take the line of, “If she desires to go to the Devil let her,” for a man has as much responsibility for his wife as for his children, and it is equally his duty to guide and control her and them.  Women may vote and may legislate for men—­but on men they will ever depend and rely.

No, the position of carping, jealous husband was one that I could not fill, and I determined to say nothing, do nothing and be watchful—­watchful, that is, to avoid exposing her to temptation.  I did my best, but I was away from home a good deal, visiting the out-station detachments of the Corps.

Then, one day, the wretched creature I called “butler” came to me with an air of great mystery and said:  “Sahib, Sergeant Burker Sahib sending Mem Sahib bundle of flowers and chitti[53] inside and diamond ring yesterday.  His boy telling me and I seeing.  He often coming here too when Sahib out.  Both wicked peoples.”