it appeared, one whose gentle ways endeared him to animals.

It was glaringly hot, and when they reached the Casa Perucca, Denise
asked the colonel to come in and rest. It was, moreover, luncheon-time,
and in a thinly populated country the great distances between neighbours
are conducive to an easier hospitality than that which exists in closer
quarters. The colonel naturally stayed to luncheon.

He was kind and affable, and had a hundred little scraps of gossip such
as exiles love. He made no mention of his offer to buy Perucca,
remembered only the fact that he was a gentleman accepting frankly a
lady's frank hospitality, and if the conversation turned to local
matters, he gracefully guided it elsewhere.

Immediately after luncheon he rose from the table, refusing even to wait
for coffee.

"I have my duties," he explained. "The War Office is, for reasons known
to itself, moving troops, and I have gradually crept up the ladder at
Bastia, till I am nearly at the top there."

Denise went with him to the stable to see that his horse had been cared
for.

"They have only left me the decrepit and the half-witted," she said, "but
I am not beaten yet."

Colonel Gilbert fetched the horse himself and tightened the girths. They
walked together towards the great gate of solid wood which fitted into
the high wall so closely that none could peep through so much as a crack.