“I couldn’t!” Van Diemen sighed.  “It’s not a natural feeling I have about it—­I ’ve brooded on the word.  If I have a nightmare, I see Deserter written in sulphur on the black wall.”

“You can’t remain at his mercy, and be bullied as you are.  He makes you ill, sir.  He won’t do anything, but he’ll go on worrying you.  I’d stop him at once.  I’d take the train to-morrow and get an introduction to the Commander-in-Chief.  He’s the very man to be kind to you in a situation like this.  The General would get you the introduction.”

“That’s more to my taste; but no, I couldn’t,” Van Diemen moaned in his weakness.  “Money has unmanned me.  I was n’t this kind of man formerly; nor more was Mart Tinman, the traitor!  All the world seems changeing for the worse, and England is n’t what she used to be.”

“You let that man spoil it for you, sir.”  Herbert related Mrs. Crickledon’s tale of Mr. Tinman, adding, “He’s an utter donkey.  I should defy him.  What I should do would be to let him know to-morrow morning that you don’t intend to see him again.  Blow for, blow, is the thing he requires.  He’ll be cringing to you in a week.”

“And you’d like to marry Annette,” said Van Diemen, relishing, nevertheless, the advice, whose origin and object he perceived so plainly.

“Of course I should,” said Herbert, franker still in his colour than his speech.

“I don’t see him my girl’s husband.”  Van Diemen eyed the red hollow in the falling coals.  “When I came first, and found him a healthy man, good-looking enough for a trifle over forty, I ’d have given her gladly, she nodding Yes.  Now all my fear is she’s in earnest.  Upon my soul, I had the notion old Mart was a sort of a boy still; playing man, you know.  But how can you understand?  I fancied his airs and stiffness were put on; thought I saw him burning true behind it.  Who can tell?  He seems to be jealous of my buying property in his native town.  Something frets him.  I ought never to have struck him!  There’s my error, and I repent it.  Strike a friend!  I wonder he didn’t go off to the Horse Guards at once.  I might have done it in his place, if I found I couldn’t lick him.  I should have tried kicking first.”

“Yes, shinning before peaching,” said Herbert, astonished almost as much as he was disgusted by the inveterate sentimental attachment of Van Diemen to his old friend.

Martin Tinman anticipated good things of the fright he had given the man after dinner.  He had, undoubtedly, yielded to temper, forgetting pure policy, which it is so exceeding difficult to practice.  But he had soothed the startled beast; they had shaken hands at parting, and Tinman hoped that the week of Annette’s absence would enable him to mould her father.  Young Fellingham’s appointment to come to Elba had slipped Mr. Tinman’s memory.  It was annoying to see this intruder.  “At all events, he’s not with Annette,” said Mrs. Cavely.  “How long has her father to run on?”