In a moment Dacre took up the tale. "I've considered myself free ever
since we separated, after only six weeks together. Any man would. It was
nothing but a passing fancy. Heaven knows why I was fool enough to marry
her, except that I had high-flown ideas of honour in those days, and I
got drawn in. She never regarded it as binding, so why in thunder should
I?" He spoke indignantly, as one who had the right of complaint.

"Your ideas of honour having altered somewhat," observed Monck, with
bitter cynicism.

Dacre winced a little. "I don't profess to be anything extraordinary,"
he said. "But I maintain that marriage gives no woman the right to wreck
a man's life. She has no more claim upon me now than the man in the
moon. If she tries to assert it, she will soon find her mistake." He was
beginning to recover his balance, and there was even a hint of his
customary complacence audible in his voice as he made the declaration.
"But there is no reason to believe she will," he added. "She knows very
well that she has nothing whatever to gain by it. Your brother seems to
have gathered but a vague idea of the affair. You had better write and
tell him that the Dacre he means is dead. Your brother-officer belongs
to another branch of the family. That ought to satisfy everybody and no
great harm done, what?"

He uttered the last word with a tentative, disarming smile. He was not
quite sure of his man, but it seemed to him that even Monck must see
the utter futility of making a disturbance about the affair at this
stage. Matters had gone so far that silence was the only course--silence
on his part, a judicious lie or two on the part of Monck. He did not see
how the latter could refuse to render him so small a service. As he
himself had remarked but a few moments before, he, Dacre, was not the