Wyley leaned across the rail of the balcony, watching the light, and
as he watched he was aware that his feelings and his thoughts changed.
The interest which he had felt in Scrope died clean away, or rather
was transferred to Knightley; and with this new interest there sprang
up a new sympathy, a new pity. The change was entirely due to that one
yellow light burning in the window and the homely suggestions which it
provoked. It brought before him very clearly the bitter contrast: so
that light had burned any night these last two years, and Scrope had
gone in and out at his will, while up in the barbarous inlands of
Morocco the husband had had his daily portion of the bastinado and
the whip. It was her fault, too, and she made her profit of it. Wyley
became sensible of an overwhelming irony in the disposition of the
world.

"You spoke a true word to-night, Major," he said bitterly. "That light
down there might turn any man to a moralist, and send him preaching in
the market-places."

"Well," returned the Major, as though he must make what defence he
could for Scrope, "the story is not the politest in the world. But,
then, you know Tangier--it is only a tiny outpost on the edges of the
world where we starve behind broken walls forgotten of our friends. We
have the Moors ever swarming at our gates and the wolf ever snarling
at our heels, and so the niceties of conduct are lost. We have so
little time wherein to live, and that little time is filled with the
noise of battle. Passion has its way with us in the end, and honour
comes to mean no more than bravery and a gallant death."

He remained a few moments silent, and then disconnectedly he told
Wyley the rest of the story.