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Again there was a long pause before the answer came in low and strained tones: “I can guess.”

“What is your guess?”

He lifted a hand and dropped it hopelessly. “You would not believe,” he said.

I will own a suspicion flashed across my mind on hearing these words–the very excuse given a while ago by Mr. Urquhart–that the whole affair was a hoax and the two young men were in conspiracy to fool me. I dismissed it at once: the sight of Mr. Mackenzie’s face, was convincing. But my temper was gone.

“Believe you?” I exclaimed. “You seem to think the one thing I can swallow as creditable, even probable, is that an officer in the Morays has been pilfering and cheating at cards. Oddly enough, it’s the last thing I’m going to believe without proof, and the last charge I shall pass without clearing it up to my satisfaction. Captain Murray, will you go and bring me Mr. Urquhart and the Major?”

As Captain Murray closed the door I rose, and with my hands behind me took a turn across the room to the fireplace, then back to the writing-table.

“Mr. Mackenzie,” I said, “before we go any further I wish you to believe that I am your friend as well as your Colonel. I did something to start you upon your career, and I take a warm interest in it. To believe you guilty of these charges will give me the keenest grief. However unlikely your defence may sound–and you seem to fear it–I will give it the best consideration I can. If you are innocent, you shall not find me prejudiced because many are against you and you are alone. Now, this coin–” I turned to the table.

The coin was gone.

I stared at the place where it had lain; then at the young man. He had not moved. My back had been turned for less than two seconds, and I could have sworn he had not budged from the square of carpet on which he had first taken his stand, and on which his feet were still planted. On the other hand, I was equally positive the incriminating coin had lain on the table at the moment I turned my back.

“It is gone!” cried I.

“Gone?” he echoed, staring at the spot to which my finger pointed. In the silence our glances were still crossing when my brother tapped at the door and brought in Mr. Urquhart, Captain Murray following.

Dismissing for a moment this latest mystery, I addressed Mr. Urquhart. “I have sent for you, sir, to request in the first place that here in Mr. Mackenzie’s presence and in colder blood you will either withdraw or repeat and at least attempt to substantiate the charge you brought against him.”

“I adhere to it, sir, that there was cheating. To withdraw would be to utter a lie. Does he deny it?”

I glanced at Mr. Mackenzie. “I deny that I cheated,” said he sullenly.

“Further,” pursued Mr. Urquhart, “I repeat what I told you, sir. He may, while profiting by it have been unaware of the cheat. At the moment I thought it impossible; but I am willing to believe–“

“You are willing!” I broke in. “And pray, sir, what about me, his Colonel, and the rest of his brother officers? Have you the coolness to suggest–“

But the full question was never put, and in this world it will never be answered. A bugle call, distant but clear, cut my sentence in half. It came from the direction of the Place d’Armes. A second bugle echoed, it from the height of the Montagne du Parc, and within a minute its note was taken up and answered across the darkness from quarter after quarter.

We looked at one another in silence. “Business,” said my brother at length, curtly and quietly.

Already the rooms above us were astir. I heard windows thrown open, voices calling questions, feet running.

“Yes,” said I, “it is business at length, and for the while this inquiry must end. Captain Murray, look to your company. You, Major, see that the lads tumble out quick to the alarm-post. One moment!”–and Captain Murray halted with his hand on the door–“It is understood that for the present no word of to-night’s affair passes our lips.” I turned to Mr. Mackenzie and answered the question I read in the lad’s eyes. “Yes, sir; for the present I take off your arrest. Get your sword. It shall be your good fortune to answer the enemy before answering me.”