AN APPOINTMENT 59 longer now, but will, if you will allow me, come in to say good-bye before I start. Captain Ewart is waiting to speak to you. He came with me from Lord Cromer’s.” Captain Ewart then went in, and after settling the business on which he had come, asked Mr. Murray questions about Gregory and received a sketch of his story.

“ He seems to be a fine young fellow,” he said, “ well-grown and active, not at all what one would expect from a product of Cairo.”

‘Ho, indeed; of course you have not seen him to advantage in that black suit, but in his ordinary clothes I should certainly take him, if I had not seen him before, to be a young lieutenant freshly come out to join.”

Did you know the father ? ” “Ho, I was not here at that time; but the mother was a lady every inch. It is strange that neither of them should have friends in England. It may be that she preferred to earn her living here and be altogether independent.”

“ She had a pension, hadn’t she ? ” “ A small one, but she really earned her living by teaching. She gave lessons to the ladies in English, French, and music, and had classes for young boys and girls. I once asked her if she did not intend to go back and settle in England, and she said ‘Possibly, some day.’ I fancy that there must have been some mystery about the affair—what, I can’t say; but at any rate we may take it that such a woman would not have married a man who was not a gentleman.”

“ Certainly the boy looks a well-bred one,” Captain Ewart said, “ and I am sure that the Sirdar must have been taken with him. You don’t know any more about his father than you have told me ? ” “ Very little. Once, in talking with his wife, she told me that her husband had been in a commercial house in Alexandria for a year, but the place was burned down at the time of the bombardment. Being thus out of harness he became an assistant to one of the army contractors, and when things