e from
the ranks."

"Go and think about what I've said, and come back when you get cool.  I
won't go out all day, and--"

_Bang_, _rattle_, and a crash!

Mark Frayne had gone out and closed the door with so much violence that
the dragoon officer's helmet was shaken from the peg upon which it hung,
and fell, bringing with it the cavalry sabre.

Richard sprang from his chair to pick them up, a frown gathering upon
his face as he saw that an ugly dint had been made in the helmet which
resisted all his efforts to force it out.

Then he stood gazing down at it and the sabre, which he had raised and
carefully laid upon the table beneath where it had hung.

It was a fancy, he knew.  He told himself that it was a silly piece of
superstition; but, all the same, a strange feeling troubled him; and it
seemed as if the fall of these old mementoes of the gallant officer, his
dead father, was a kind of portent of trouble to come--trouble and
disaster that would be brought about by his cousin.



CHAPTER FIVE.

RIGHT FORWARD.

The dreamy sensation of unreality passed away for the moment, and
Richard Frayne flung himself upon his knees beside his cousin, to raise
his head, after hurriedly taking out and folding a handkerchief to form
a bandage; while, after eagerly watching him for a few moments, one of
the two pupils turned and dashed off as hard as he could run in the
direction of the town.

But the bandage was too short; and, after looking wildly up at his
companion, Richard tore off his necktie, made a pad of the handkerchief,
and bound it firmly to the back of his cousin's head, conscious, as he
did so, of the fact that the bone was dented in by its contact with the
stone.

"Go for help!" cried Richard, huskily.

"No, no; I can't leave you now," said the other, who stood there, white
and trembling.  "Andrews has gone for a doctor.  Somebody else is sure
to come.  Oh, Frayne! what have you done?"

The lad looked up at him wildly, but he could not speak.  The strange
sensation of everything being unreal came over him again, a