hauling ropes. "He'll probably never get quite over this, but he is
fighting like a man, Charles--tell me as much as you feel inclined to of
the story."

So Sir Charles began in his short, broken sentences:

"Parson's girl to start with--sympathy over a broken collar-bone. The wife
behaved unwisely about it, so the boy thought he was in love. We sent him
to travel to get rid of that idea. It appears he met this lady in
Lucerne--seems to have been an exceptional person--a Russian, Tompson
says--a Queen or Princess _incog.,_ the fellow tells me--but I can't spot
her as yet. Hubert will know who she was, though--but it does not
matter--the woman herself was the thing. Gather she was quite a remarkable
woman--ten years older than Paul."

"Always the case," growled Captain Grigsby.

Sir Charles puffed at his pipe--and then: "They were only together three
weeks," he said. "And during that time she managed to cram more knowledge
of everything into the boy's head than you and I have got in a
lifetime. Give you my word, Grig, when he was off his chump in the fever,
he raved like a poet, and an orator, and he was only an ordinary sportsman
when he left home in the spring! Cleopatra, he called her one day, and I
fancy that was the keynote--she must have been one of those exceptional
women we read of in the sixth form."

"And fortunately never met!" said Captain Grigsby.

"I don't know," mused Sir Charles. "It might have been good to live as
wildly even at the price. We've both been about the world, Grig, since the