proposal."

Moreover Dewes failed to carry Luffe's dying message to Calcutta. For on
one point--a point of fact--Luffe was immediately proved wrong. Mir Ali,
the Khan of Chiltistan, was retained upon his throne. Dewes turned the
matter over in his slow mind. Wrong definitely, undeniably wrong on the
point of fact, was it not likely that Luffe was wrong too on the point
of theory? Dewes had six months furlong too, besides, and was anxious to
go home. It would be a bore to travel to Bombay by way of Calcutta. "Let
the boy go to Eton and Oxford!" he said. "Why not?" and the years
answered him.




CHAPTER V

A MAGAZINE ARTICLE


The little war of Chiltistan was soon forgotten by the world. But it
lived vividly enough in the memories of a few people to whom it had
brought either suffering or fresh honours. But most of all it was
remembered by Sybil Linforth, so that even after fourteen years a chance
word, or a trivial coincidence, would bring back to her the horror and
the misery of that time as freshly as if only a single day had
intervened. Such a coincidence happened on this morning of August.

She was in the garden with her back to the Downs which rose high from
close behind the house, and she was looking across the fields rich with