"Do you know his name?"
"Yes, Wilders—another of my fine cousins. You can understand now why I am so bitter against my relations to-day: there are too many of them about."
"I suppose that is what's brought our Mr. Wilders here to-day—to meet his cousin."
"And his brother; for they are on board Lord Lydstone's yacht."
"They! How many of them?"
"General Wilders has his wife with him, I believe, accompanying him to the East."
"Old idiot! Why couldn't he leave her at home? Women are in the way at these times. Soldiers have no business with wives."
"That's why you never married, I suppose?"
Hyde did not answer his question, but got up and left his comrade abruptly, to re-enter the guard-room.