of you in shed B are bound to know. And I want to ask you where is
the common-sense of keeping up this farce, and maintaining this
cock-and-bull story between friends. Come, come, my good fellow,
own yourself beaten, and laugh at it yourself.'

'Well, I hear you, go ahead,' said I. 'You put your heart in it.'

He crossed his legs slowly. 'I can very well understand,' he
began, 'that precautions have had to be taken. I dare say an oath
was administered. I can comprehend that perfectly.' (He was
watching me all the time with his cold, bright eyes.) 'And I can
comprehend that, about an affair of honour, you would be very
particular to keep it.'

'About an affair of honour?' I repeated, like a man quite puzzled.

'It was not an affair of honour, then?' he asked.

'What was not? I do not follow,' said I.

He gave no sign of impatience; simply sat awhile silent, and began
again in the same placid and good-natured voice: 'The court and I
were at one in setting aside your evidence. It could not deceive a
child. But there was a difference between myself and the other
officers, because _I_ KNEW MY MAN and they did not. They saw in
you a common soldier, and I knew you for a gentleman. To them your
evidence was a leash of lies, which they yawned to hear you
telling. Now, I was asking myself, how far will a gentleman go?
Not surely so far as to help hush a murder up? So that--when I
heard you tell how you knew nothing of the matter, and were only