“Lucky man!” said Everard briefly.

“Ah!  I didn’t think myself lucky when I had to give up the Charthurst chaplaincy.”  Bernard spoke through a haze of smoke.  “I’m afraid I kicked a bit at first—­which was a short-sighted thing to do, I admit.  But I had got to look on it as my life-work, and I loved it.  It held such opportunities.”  He broke off with a sharp sigh.  “I shall be at it again if I go on.  Can’t you give me something pleasanter to think about?  Haven’t you got a photograph of your wife to show me?”

Everard got up.  “Yes, I have.  But it doesn’t do her justice.”  He took a letter-case from his pocket and opened it.  A moment he stood bent over the portrait he withdrew from it, then turned and handed it to his brother.

Bernard studied it in silence.  It was an unmounted amateur photograph of Stella standing on the creeper-grown verandah of the Green Bungalow.  She was smiling, but her eyes were faintly sad, as though shadowed by the memory of some past pain.

For many seconds Bernard gazed upon the pictured face.  Finally he spoke.

“Your wife must be a very beautiful woman.”

“Yes,” said Everard quietly.

He spoke gravely.  His brother’s eyes travelled upwards swiftly.  “That was not what you married her for, eh?”

Everard stooped and took the portrait from him.  “Well, no—­not entirely,” he said.

Bernard smiled a little.  “You haven’t told me much about her, you know.  How long have you been acquainted?”

“Nearly two years.  I think I mentioned in my letter that she was the widow of a comrade?”

“Yes, I remember.  But you were rather vague about it.  What happened to him?  Didn’t he meet with a violent death?”

There was a pause.  Everard was still standing with his eyes fixed upon the photograph.  His face was stern.

“What was it?” questioned Bernard.  “Didn’t he fall over a precipice?”

“Yes,” abruptly the younger man made answer.  “It happened in Kashmir when they were on their honeymoon.”

“Ah!  Poor girl!  She must have suffered.  What was his name?  Was he a pal of yours?”

“More or less.”  Everard’s voice rang hard.  “His name was Dacre.”

“Oh, to be sure.  The man I wrote to you about just before poor Madelina Belleville died in prison.  Her husband’s name was Dacre.  He was in the Army too, and she thought he was in India.  But it’s not a very uncommon name.”  Bernard spoke thoughtfully.  “You said he was no relation.”

“I said to the best of my belief he was not.”  Everard turned suddenly and sat down.  “People are not keen, you know, on owning to shady relations.  He was no exception to the rule.  But if the woman died, it’s of no great consequence now to any one.  When did she die?”

Bernard took a long pull at his pipe.  His brows were slightly drawn.  “She died suddenly, poor soul.  Did I never tell you?  It must have been immediately after I wrote that letter to you.  It was.  I remember now.  It was the very day after....  She died on the twenty-first of March—­the first day of spring.  Poor girl!  She had so longed for the spring.  Her time would have been up in May.”