Lieutenant Brackenbury Rich had greatly distinguished himself in
one of the lesser Indian hill wars. He it was who took the
chieftain prisoner with his own hand; his gallantry was universally
applauded; and when he came home, prostrated by an ugly sabre cut
and a protracted jungle fever, society was prepared to welcome the
Lieutenant as a celebrity of minor lustre. But his was a character
remarkable for unaffected modesty; adventure was dear to his heart,
but he cared little for adulation; and he waited at foreign
watering-places and in Algiers until the fame of his exploits had
run through its nine days' vitality and begun to be forgotten. He
arrived in London at last, in the early season, with as little
observation as he could desire; and as he was an orphan and had
none but distant relatives who lived in the provinces, it was
almost as a foreigner that he installed himself in the capital of
the country for which he had shed his blood.

On the day following his arrival he dined alone at a military club.
He shook hands with a few old comrades, and received their warm
congratulations; but as one and all had some engagement for the
evening, he found himself left entirely to his own resources. He
was in dress, for he had entertained the notion of visiting a
theatre. But the great city was new to him; he had gone from a
provincial school to a military college, and thence direct to the
Eastern Empire; and he promised himself a variety of delights in
this world for exploration. Swinging his cane, he took his way
westward. It was a mild evening, already dark, and now and then
threatening rain. The succession of faces in the lamplight stirred
the Lieutenant's imagination; and it seemed to him as if he could
walk for ever in that stimulating city atmosphere and surrounded by