“Oh you hypocrite!” remarked his familiar and plain-spoken internal friend; “where was this grand sense of duty when you left home in a rage without ‘by your leave’ to father or mother?” Miles could make no reply. He had a tendency to silence when this friend spoke, and returned to barracks in a pensive mood, just in time, as Armstrong said, to save his bacon.
Note 1. This fleece is now, among other curiosities, at the Portsmouth Institute.
Chapter Ten.
Off to the Wars.
The troops sent out to Egypt at that time were much wanted to reinforce the southern frontier and defend it from the attacks of Osman Digna, who, with a large host of the dusky warriors of the Soudan, was giving the defenders much trouble, and keeping them incessantly on the qui vive.
Miles Milton had no time while in Alexandria for anything but duty. He saw Marion only once again before leaving, but did not find an opportunity to converse with her alone. To do him justice, he had not the most distant intention of declaring the state of his feelings, even if the opportunity had been given. He merely desired to be in her company for a little on any terms whatever!
On that occasion, however, he contrived to scorch his heart with a double dose of jealousy, for he found two young men visiting the clergyman, each of whom seemed to be a friend of the family. One was a spendthrift named Rentworth—a young traveller of that loose, easy-going type which is occasionally met with in foreign parts, squandering the money of a rich father. He was a decidedly handsome young fellow, but with the stamp of dissipation already on his countenance. The other was a telegraph engineer, with honesty and good-nature in every line of his plain countenance.