"The guy-rope they had on the gangplank might have held it up." Turning away, he entered the smoking-room, where he spent a while over an English newspaper that devoted some space to social functions and the doings of people of importance, noticing once or twice, with a curious smile, mention of names he knew.

He had the gift of making friends, and before he went to India he had met a number of men and women of note who had been disposed to like him.

Then he had won the good opinion of responsible officers on the turbulent frontier and had made acquaintances that might have been valuable.

Now, however, he had done with all that; he was banished from the world in which they moved, and if they ever remembered him it was, no doubt, as one who had gone under.
Shaking off these thoughts, he joined some Americans in a game of cards, and it was late at night when he went out into the moonlight as the boat steamed up Lake St.Peter.

A long plume of smoke trailed across the cloudless sky, the water glistened with silvery radiance, and, looking over the wide expanse, he could see dark trees etched faintly on the blue horizon.