for those in not to take any official notice of the a� fair which would possibly be used as a handle for attack upon them you would therefore receive no written and the necessary money would be handed to you in gold i quite understand answered and so long as i am not thought the worse of in such an event or made to suffer for it it is all the same to me only he added suddenly remembering his marriage when should i have to start by the evening mail to morrow said the secretary of state for the conditions may change and will not bear delay s jaw fell i am to be married to morrow at half past two sir the secretary of state and lord looked at each other then the former spoke we know that colonel especially as one of us is to have the pleasure of attending your wedding still in your own interests and what we are sure you will consider much more in those of your country we felt it right to give you the first offer of this delicate and responsible mission situated as you are we do not urge you to accept it especially as in the event of your refusal for which we shall not in the least blame you we have another officer waiting to take your place at the same time i tell you candidly that i do not think you will refuse because i believe you to be a man who sets duty above every other earthly consideration and now as i am to hurry you when there is so much to be considered on both sides i must ask for your decision as the other gentleman must absolutely have twenty four hours in which to make his preparations rose and walked twice up and down the room while they watched him � lord very uneasily at the second turn he halted opposite to the secretary ot state a you used the word duty sir he said and therefore i have little choice in the matter i accept the mission with which you have been pleased to honour me lord opened his mouth to speak but the secretary of state cut him short as colonel has accepted i do not think we need waste further time in discussion colonel i congratulate you on the spirit that you have shown which as i thought it would from your record and the judgment i formed of you at our previous interview has led you to place your duty to your queen and country before your personal happiness and convenience i trust � and indeed i may say i believe � that our arrangement of this afternoon may prove not the starting point it is true but a very high step in a great and distinguished career good day i wish you all success lord will join you in his room presently and settle the details it seems a little rough said lord as the door closed behind on his marriage day and so forth supposing he got killed as he very likely will many men as good or better have come to grief in doing their duty answered his chief a individual who himself upon the at any rate where other people were concerned he must take his chance like the rest give him the k c b and that sort of thing if he gets through you know k c b s aren t much use to dead men or their either grumbled lord i rather wish we hadn t talked to him about duty you see he is a sort of fellow and really as he isn t even to have a commission there can t be any duty in the matter he s only a kind of on a second class forlorn hope to prepare the way by and otherwise for an advance about which nothing is to be said with the chance of being of tbe spirit as having exceeded his instructions if anything goes wrong really said his chief uneasily it is a pity all this didn t occur to you before you urged his employment � on the representations of his family i understood anyway it s settled now and we can t go back on it besides from a public point of view it was important to get who really is the only man for that major what s his name is an ignorant and conceited fellow with nothing to recommend him except his knowledge of who would have been sure to make a mess with the example of what has happened in the past before our eyes we can t commit ourselves in writing over a job of this sort if he gets killed � he gets killed and we are not to blame if he comes through he is made a k c b and his all the more so don t let s bother about him is there anything else no then good bye i ll be off to the house chapter x married left the war office a very thoughtful man he had spent nearly an hour with lord going into the details of his mission of which he now the danger and for it was one of those fantastic which seem easy enough to men in authority at home who are not called upon to execute them in person all this he did not mind however for it appealed to his love of adventure moreover he had good hopes of bringing the thing to a successful issue and understood the importance of its object namely to an ultimate advance against the and to help to the chief who was making himself active in the neighbourhood of but what would say and on the very day of their marriage the luck was hard he drove to square but was trying on her wedding dress and would not 