"Never, Jim. Let me tell you a story as we ride home. You and I shall be good friends, I know. I like you already, though we have only known one another two days. I can see well what you are made of. They say it eases a man's mind to tell his grief. I wish it would mine. Well; before I left England I had secretly engaged myself to marry a beautiful girl, very much like your sister, a governess in my brother-in-law's family. I went off to join my regiment, and left her there with my sister and her husband, Lord Carstone, who treated her as if she was already one of the family—God bless them! Two years ago my father died, and I came into twenty thousand pounds; not much, but enough to get married on in India, particularly as I was getting on in my profession. So I wrote to her to come out to me. She sailed in the Assam, for Calcutta, but the ship never arrived. She was spoken off the Mauritius, but never seen after. The underwriters have paid up her insurance, and everyone knows now that the Assam went down in a typhoon, with all hands."
"God bless you," said Jim! "I'm very sorry for that."
"Thank you. I have come here for change of scene more than anything, but I think I shall go back soon."
"I shall come with you," said Jim. "I have determined to be a soldier, and I know the governor has interest enough to get me into some regiment in India." (I don't believe he had ever thought of it before that morning.)
"If you are determined, he might. His services in India were too splendid to have been forgotten yet."
"I wonder," said Jim, "if he will let me go? I'd like to see Alice married first."
They jogged on in silence for a little, and slowly, on account of the wounded dogs. Then Jim said,—
"Well, and how did you like your sport?"
"Very much, indeed; but I thought bush-riding was harder work. We have only had one or two leaps over fallen logs altogether."
"There ain't much leaping, that's a fact. I suppose you have been fox-hunting?"