Indeed, his conduct of the affair, if we consider the extent of his knowledge, was nothing less than masterly.

Corporal Zeally found himself a sergeant within forty-eight hours, and within an hour of the announcement he and Polly were given an audience in the Bayfield library, with the result that Parson Milliton cried their banns in Axcester Church on the following Sunday, and the bride-elect received a month's wages and three weeks' notice of dismissal, with a hint that the reason for her short retention--to instruct her successor in Miss Dorothea's ways--was ostensible rather than real.

With Raoul's fate he declined to meddle.

"Here," he said in effect, "is my report, including the prisoner's confession.

I do my simple duty in presenting it.