“What were you doing on the bridge?”

“Waiting till dark.  I was going to ask at the lodge then whether you were at home.”

“And if I hadn’t been?”

“Gone on somewhere else, I suppose.”

Jack tried to help himself to a whisky and soda, but the soda flew out all over his shirt-front like a fountain, and he was forced to make a small remark.  Then he made another.

“What about prison?”

Frank smiled.

“Oh!  I’ve almost forgotten that.  It was beastly at the time, though.”

“And ... and the Major and the work!  Lord!  Frank, you do tell a story badly.”

He smiled again much more completely.

“I’m too busy inside,” he said.  “Those things don’t seem to matter much, somehow.”

“Inside?  What the deuce do you mean?”

Frank made a tiny deprecating gesture.

“Well, what it’s all about, you know ...  Jack.”

“Yes.”

“It’s a frightfully priggish thing to say, but I’m extraordinarily interested as to what’s going to happen next—­inside, I mean.  At least, sometimes; and then at other times I don’t care a hang.”

Jack looked bewildered, and said so tersely.  Frank leaned forward a little.

“It’s like this, you see.  Something or other has taken me in hand:  I’m blessed if I know what.  All these things don’t happen one on the top of the other just by a fluke.  There’s something going on, and I want to know what it is.  And I suppose something’s going to happen soon.”

“For God’s sake do say what you mean!”

“I can’t more than that.  I tell you I don’t know.  I only wish somebody could tell me.”

“But what does it all amount to?  What are you going to do next?”

“Oh!  I know that all right.  I’m going to join the Major and Gertie again.”

“Frank!”

“Yes?...  No, not a word, please.  You promised you wouldn’t.  I’m going to join those two again and see what happens.”

“But why?”

“That’s my job.  I know that much.  I’ve got to get that girl back to her people again.  She’s not his wife, you know.”

“But what the devil—­”

“It seems to me to matter a good deal.  Oh! she’s a thoroughly stupid girl, and he’s a proper cad; but that doesn’t matter.  It’s got to be done; or, rather, I’ve got to try to do it.  I daresay I shan’t succeed, but that, again, doesn’t matter.  I’ve got to do my job, and then we’ll see.”

Jack threw up his hands.

“You’re cracked!” he said.

“I daresay,” said Frank solemnly.

There was a pause.  It seemed to Jack that the whole thing must be a dream.  This simply wasn’t Frank at all.  The wild idea came to him that the man who sat before him with Frank’s features was some kind of changeling.  Mentally he shook himself.

“And what about Jenny?” he said.

Frank sat perfectly silent and still for an instant.  Then he spoke without heat.