pleasant position; not to speak of interest at one
hundred per cent. I’ll write to Bull to-night.
I won’t tell Milly till all is settled, and
Leverson is paid; I shall have better heart to
do so then.”

He wrote accordingly. By return of post
came Mr. Bull’s answer, saying that the exchange
was in course of being arranged, and that
the money would be paid, minus his commission
of twenty pounds, as soon as it appeared in the
Gazette. In a postscript he added that should
Captain Chester be in immediate want of the
money he would advance it at once.”

This offer Frank willingly accepted, and, before
the week was out, had the pleasure of
sending Mr. Leverson a cheque for the four
hundred and forty-five pounds, and of receiving
a polite note, and his bill cancelled, by return.

A few days afterwards, the Gazette announced
the exchange, and nothing was left for
Frank but to settle his affairs, and join his new
regiment in India.

Yes, there was one other thing. I had nearly
forgotten that, though Frank had not forgotten
it:

He had to tell Milly.

But he was saved that hard task after all,
by Milly herself.

“I am glad you have done it, Frank dear,”
she whispered, taking his hand in both of hers,
and looking up, lovingly, in his face. “I saw
the letter lying on the table, and knew at once
it was about that.”

“But, Milly, do you think you can stand it?
I’ll leave you at home, if you like.”

“Oh, Frank, don’t talk so; anything but
that! I don’t a bit mind going; and it will be
so different, now that you are a captain. When
shall we start, do you think?”

“Perhaps in a month, perhaps less; I can’t
tell yet.”

“And we shall get out just for the cold
weather—how nice it will be!—and we shall see
all our old friends again, and I shall have such
lots of work to do in getting baby’s things ready.
We will take out everything this time with us,
won’t we, Frank?” And then she ran off to
tell baby all about it; how she was going back
to India, and to the beautiful hills, and to see
the monkeys, and the great elephants, and
to have the old “bearer” again, and she
clapped her hands, and tossed the baby up,
and the baby crowed, and screamed, and
jumped, and fell fast asleep in her arms;
and then Milly drew down the blinds, and laid
her in her cot, and kneeling down beside it
prayed that it might be always so, and that
God would bring no harm to her darlings in
the far-off land they were going to. And this
was the way in which Frank’s little wife bore
the news that Frank was so afraid to tell.

Then there came a season of letter-writing,
and visiting, and packing, and general
confusion, for Frank had got a passage in
one of the new troop ships, and was to sail
within the month. He had settled his account
with Mr. Bull, and paid off several of his most
pressing bills, and found but a small balance in
his agent’s hands when it was finished.

However, he was clear of Leverson, and
what little he still owed his fine Indian pay
would soon provide; all which gave him
courage for his work, and he went about
cheerfully with Milly, falling in with all her
plans, and cordially approving of all her
purchases. And so all the purchases got to be
completed, and all the farewells said, and Frank
stood on the great ship’s deck watching the
blue land of his home grow fainter and dimmer
over the wave tops, and pointed out to Milly
the bluff headlands and snug harbours they
might never see again. And so they watched
till evening faded into night, and the great sea
lights glimmered out along the coast, and the
heavy south-west wind came soughing along
from the wide ocean whither they were bound,
whistling through the cordage, and making the
vast ship quiver and plunge, and send the black
water from her bows in great angry waves.
And so at last Milly, shivering, drew her husband
away, and they went down to the brightly-lighted
saloon below, and lost themselves in the
crowd of strange faces there.

Six months roll away, and husband and wife
are settled in Frank’s new regiment.

The ills that Milly dreaded have passed lightly
over their heads; the baby has increased in
stature and in power of lungs, under the old
“bearer;” and Frank is well and strong, and
save for a short grumble now and then at the
heat, or at the monotony of the station, appears
contented.

They have been living very quietly. There
are still debts at home to be paid, and expenses
have increased in India since they were there
before. Frank has been making inquiries as
to insuring his life, but the premiums are high,
and their income only just suffices to keep them
straight, and to pay off by degrees the remaining
home bills. Thus it comes to pass that the
idea of the insurance is allowed to drop.

“Next year,” thought Frank, “these things
will be all squared, and then we shall be able
to turn round. I must chance it till then. It
isn’t as though Milly had nothing; she has
her own hundred a year, though she can’t
touch the principal. What with that, and what
with an officer’s wife’s pension, she wouldn’t
be a beggar.”

But that year the dreaded cholera came tearing
through the country, and, settling upon
Frank’s regiment, counted its victims by tens,
and soon by hundreds. At a moment’s notice
the men were marched into camp, and hurried
up and down in the deadly jungles, now rank
and steaming from the autumn rains, in a vain
attempt to fly from the pestilence.

Night and day did the officers tend their
men, exhorting them to bear up and fight
against their fears; night and day did they see
their words of hope falsified by sudden and
cruel death.

Foremost among the helpers of the sick was