Captain Desmond, V.C.

"Why just now? Besides, you won't be alone. You will have Honor."

"Yes. But I want you. It has all been so lovely since Christmas. Theo – darling, – I can't let you go, and – and perhaps be killed by those horrid Afridis. Every one knows how brave you are. They would never think you shirked the fighting. And Major Wyndham would do anything you asked him. Will you —will you?"

Desmond's mouth hardened to a dogged line, and he drew a little away from her; because her entreaty and the disturbing nearness of her face made resistance harder than he dared allow her to guess.

"My dear little woman, you haven't the smallest notion what you are asking of me. I never bargained for throwing up active service on your account; and I'll not give the fellows a chance to insult you by flinging marriage in my teeth."

"That means – you insist on going?"

"My dear – I can do nothing else."

She threw his hand from her with a choking sob.

"Very well, then, go – go! I know, now, that you don't really – care, in your heart – whatever you may say."

And turning again to the mantelpiece, she laid her head upon her arms.

For a few moments Desmond stood regarding her, a great pain and tenderness in his eyes.

"It is rather cruel of you to put it that way, Ladybird," he said gently. "Can't you see that this isn't a question – of caring, but simply of doing my duty? Won't you try and help me, instead of making things harder for us both?"

He passed his hand caressingly over her hair, and a little shiver of misery went through her at this touch.

"It's all very well to talk grandly about duty," she answered in a smothered voice. "And it's no use pretending to love me – when you won't do anything I ask. But – you want to go."

Desmond sighed, and instinctively glanced across at Honor for a confirmation of his resolve not to let tenderness undermine his sense of right. But that which he saw banished all thought of his own heartache.

She sat leaning a little forward, her hands clasped tightly over Meredith's letter, her face white and strained, her eyes luminous as he had never yet seen them.

For the shock of his unexpected news had awakened her roughly, abruptly to a very terrible truth. Since his entrance into the room she had seen her phantom palace of friendship fall about her like a house of cards; had seen, rising from its ruins, that which her brain and will refused to recognise, but which every pulse in her body confirmed beyond possibility of doubt.

Desmond's eyes looking anxiously into hers, roused her to a realisation of her urgent need to be alone with her incredible discovery. Her lips lost their firmness; the hot colour surged into her cheeks; and smoothing out John's letter with uncertain fingers, she rose to her feet.

But in rising she swayed unsteadily; and in an instant Desmond was beside her. He had never before seen this girl's composure shaken, and it startled him.

"Honor, what has upset you so?" he asked in a low tone. "Not bad news of John?" For he had recognised the writing.

She shook her head, fearing the sound of her own voice, and his unfailing keenness of perception.

"You must be ill, then. I was afraid you were going to faint just now. Come into the dining-room and have a glass of wine."

She acquiesced in silence. It would be simplest to let him attribute her passing weakness to physical causes. And she went forward blindly, resolutely, with a proud lift of her chin, never looking at him once.

He walked beside her, bewildered and distressed, refraining from speech till she should be more nearly mistress of herself, and lightly holding her arm, because she was so evidently in need of support. She tightened her lips and mastered an imperious impulse to free herself from his touch. His unspoken solicitude unnerved her; and a sigh of pure relief escaped her when he set her down upon a chair, and went over to the sideboard for some wine.

She sipped it slowly, supporting her head, and at the same time shielding her eyes from his troubled scrutiny. He sat beside her, on the table's edge, and waited till the wineglass was half empty before he spoke.

"Did you feel at all ill this morning? I'll go for Mackay at once to make sure there's nothing wrong."

"No – no." There was a touch of impatience in her tone. "Please don't bother. It is nothing. It will pass."

"I didn't mean to vex you," he answered humbly. "But you are not the sort of woman who goes white to the lips for nothing. Either you are ill, or you are badly upset. You promised John to let me take his place while he was away, and if you are in any trouble or difficulty, – don't shut me out. You have done immensely much for both of us. Give me the chance to do a little for you. Remember, Honor," his voice took a deeper note of feeling, "you are more to me than the Major's sister or Ladybird's friend. You are mine, too. Won't you tell me what's wrong?"

At that she pulled herself together and faced him with a brave semblance of a smile.

"I am very proud to be your friend, Theo. But there are times when the truest friendship is just to stand on one side and ask no questions. That is what I want you to do now. Please believe that if you could help me, even a little, I would not shut you out."

"I believe you – and I'll not say another word. You will go and lie down, perhaps, till tiffin time?"

"No. I think I will go to Ladybird. She badly needs comforting. You broke your news to us rather abruptly, you know. We are not hardened yet, like Frank, to the boot-and-saddle life here."

"I'm sorry. It was thoughtless of me. We are all so used to it. One's apt to forget – "

He rose and took a few steps away from her; then, returning, stood squarely before her. She had risen also, partly to prove her own strength, and partly to put an end to the strain of being alone with him.

"Honor," he asked, "was I hard with Ladybird? And am I an unpardonable brute if I insist on holding out against her?"

"Indeed, no! You mustn't dream of doing anything else."

She looked full at him now, forgetful of herself in concern for him.

"I was half afraid – once, that you were going to give way."

"Poor Ladybird! She little guessed how near I came to it. And maybe that's as well, after all."

"Yes, Theo. It would be fatal to begin that way. I quite see how hard it is for her. But she must learn to understand. When it comes to active service, we women must be put altogether on one side. If we can't help, we are at least bound not to hinder."

Desmond watched her while she spoke with undisguised admiration.

"Would you say that with the same assurance, I wonder, if it were John? Or if it happened to be – your own husband?"

A rush of colour flooded her face, but she had strength enough not to turn it aside.

"Of course I would."

"Then I sincerely hope you will marry one of us, Honor. Wives of that quality are too rare to be wasted on civilians!"

This time she bent her head.

"I should never dream of marrying any one – but a soldier," she answered very low. "Now I must go back to my poor Evelyn and help her to see things more from your point of view."

"How endlessly good to us you are," he said with sudden fervour. "I know I can count on you to keep her up to the mark, and not let her make herself too miserable while we are away."

"Yes – yes. I am only so thankful to be here with her – this first time."

He stood aside to let her pass; and she went out quickly, holding her head higher than usual.

He followed at a little distance, still perplexed and thoughtful, but refraining from the least attempt to account for her very unusual behaviour. What she did not choose to tell him he would not seek to know.

On the threshold of the drawing-room he paused.

His wife still stood where he had left her, disconsolately fingering her roses, her delicate face marred with weeping. Honor went to her straightway; and putting both arms round her kissed her with a passionate tenderness, intensified by a no less passionate self-reproach.

At the unnerving touch of sympathy Evelyn's grief broke out afresh.

"Oh, Honor – Honor, comfort me!" she sobbed, unaware of her husband's presence in the doorway. "You're the only one who really cares. And he is so – so pleased about it. That makes it worse than all!"

A spasm of pain crossed Desmond's face, and he turned sharply away.

"Poor little soul!" he reflected as he went; "shall I ever be able to make her understand?"

CHAPTER XVIII.

LOVE THAT IS LIFE!

"Love that is Life;Love that is Death,Love that is mine!"– Gipsy Song.

Not until night condemned her to solitude and thought did Honor frankly confront the calamity that had come upon her with the force of a blow, cutting her life in two, shattering her pride, her joy, her inherent hopefulness of heart.

The insignificant fact that her life was broken did not set the world a hair's breadth out of gear; and through the day she held her head high, looking and speaking as usual, because she still had faith and strength and courage; and, having these, the saddest soul alive will not be utterly cast down.

She spent most of her time with Evelyn; and succeeded in so far reconciling her to Theo's decision that Evelyn slipped quietly into the study, where he sat reading, and flinging her arms round him whispered broken words of penitence into the lapel of his coat; a proceeding even more disintegrating to his resolution than her attitude of the morning.

Honor rode out to the polo-ground with them later on in the day, returning with Paul Wyndham, who stayed to dinner, a habit that had grown upon him since the week at Lahore. She wondered a little afterwards what he had talked of during the ride, and what she had said in reply; but since he seemed satisfied, she could only hope that she had not betrayed herself by any incongruity of speech or manner.

During the evening she talked and played with a vigour and cheerfulness which quite failed to deceive Desmond. But of this she was unaware. The shock of the morning had stunned her brain. She herself and those about her were as dream-folk moving in a dream while her soul sat apart, in some vague region of space, noting and applauding her body's irreproachable behaviour. Only now and then, when she caught Theo's eyes resting on her face, the whole dream-fabric fell to pieces, and stabbed her spirit broad awake.

Desmond himself could not altogether shut out anxious conjecture. By an instinct he could hardly have explained, he spoke very little to the girl, except to demand certain favourite pieces of music, most of which, to his surprise, she laughingly refused to play. Only, in bidding her good-night, he held her hand a moment longer than usual, smiling straight into her eyes; and the strong enfolding pressure, far from unsteadying her, seemed rather to revive her flagging fortitude. For who shall estimate the virtue that goes out from the hand-clasp of a brave man, to whose courage is added the strength of a stainless mind?

At last it was over.

She had left the husband and wife together, happy in a reconciliation of her own making; had dismissed Parbutti, bolted the door behind her, and now stood like one dazed, alone with God and her grief, which already seemed old as the stars, – a thing preordained before the beginning of time.

She never thought of turning up the lamp; but remained standing very straight and still, her hands clenched, all the pride of her maidenhood up in arms against that which dominated her, by no will of her own.

She knew now, past question, – and the certainty crimsoned her face and neck, – that she had loved him unwittingly from the moment of meeting; possibly even from that earlier moment when she had unerringly picked out his face from among many others. Herein lay the key to her instinctive recoil from too rapid intimacy; the key to the peculiar quality of her intercourse with him, which had been from the first a thing apart; as far removed from her friendship with Wyndham as is the serenity of the foothills from the life-giving breath of the heights.

And now – now that she had been startled into knowledge, the whole truth must be confronted, the better to be combated; – the truth that she loved him – with everything in her – with every thought, every instinct of soul and body. Nay, more, in the very teeth of her shame and self-abasement, she knew that she was glad and proud to have loved him, and no lesser man, even though the fair promise of her womanhood were doomed to go down unfulfilled into the grave.

Not for a moment did she entertain the cheap consolatory thought that she would get over it; or would, in time, give some good man the husk of her heart in exchange for the first-fruits of his own. She held the obsolete opinion that marriage unconsecrated by love was a deadlier sin than the one into which she had fallen unawares; and which, at least, need not tarnish or sadden any life save her own. This last brought her sharply into collision with practical issues. In the face of her discovery, dared she – ought she to remain even a week longer under Theo's roof?

Her heart cried out that she must go; that every hour of intercourse with him was fraught with peril. The fact that his lips were sealed availed her nothing; for these two had long since passed that danger point in platonic friendship when words are discarded for more direct communing of soul with soul. Theo could read every look in her eyes, every tone of her voice, like an open book, and she knew it; though she had never acknowledged it till now. All unconsciously he would wrest her secret from her by force of sympathetic insight; and she, who implicitly believed in God, who held suicide to be the most dastardly sin a human being can commit, knew that she would take her own life without hesitation rather than stand proven disloyal to Evelyn, disgraced in the eyes of the man she loved. She did not think this thing in detail. She merely knew it, with the instinctive certainty of a vehement temperament that feels and knows apart from all need of words.

Her character had been moulded by men – simple, upright men; and she had imbibed their hard-and-fast notions of honour, of right and wrong. She had power to turn her back upon her love, to live out her life as though it were not, on two conditions only. No one must ever suspect the truth. No one but herself must suffer because of it. Conditions hard to be fulfilled.

"Oh, Theo!"

The cry broke from her unawares – a throb of the heart made vocal. It roused her to reality, to the fact that she had been standing rigidly in the middle of the room, – how long she knew not, – seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but the voice of her tormented soul.

She went forward mechanically to the dressing-table, and leaning her hands upon it, looked long and searchingly into her own face. Her pallor, the ivory sheen of her dress, and the unnatural lustre of her eyes, gave her reflection a ghostly aspect in the dim light; and she shuddered. Was this to be the end of her high hopes and ideals, – of her resolute waiting and longing and praying for the very best that life and love could give? Was it actually she, – John's sister – her father's daughter – who had succumbed to this undreamed-of wrong?

At thought of them, and of their great pride in her, all her strained composure went to pieces. She sank into a chair and pressed both hands against her face. But no tears forced their way between her fingers. A girl reared by four brothers is not apt to fall a-weeping upon every provocation; and Honor suffered the more keenly in consequence.

Suddenly the darkness was irradiated by a vision of Theo, as he had appeared on entering the drawing-room that morning, in the familiar undress uniform that seemed a part of himself; bringing with him, as always, his own magnetic atmosphere of alertness and vigour, of unquestioning certainty that life was very much worth living. Every detail of his face sprang clearly into view, and for a moment Honor let herself go.

She deliberately held the vision, concentrating all her soul upon it, as on a face that one sees for the last time, and wills never to forget. It was an actual parting, and she felt it as such – a parting with the man who could never be her friend again.

Then, chafing against her momentary weakness, she pulled herself together, let her hands fall into her lap with a slow sigh that was almost a sob, and wondered, dully, whether sleep would come to her before morning. Certainly not until she had considered her position dispassionately, – neither ignoring its terrible possibilities, nor exaggerating her own sense of shame and disgrace, – and had settled, once for all, what honour and duty demanded of her in the circumstances.

One fact at least was clear. Her love for Theo Desmond was, in itself, no sin. It was a force outside the region of will, – imperious, irresistible. But it set her on the brink of a precipice, where only God and the high compulsion of her soul could withhold her from a plunge into the abyss.

"Mine own soul forbiddeth me: there, for each of us, is the eternal right and wrong." For Honor there could be no thought, no question of the false step, or of the abyss; and sinking on her knees she poured out her heart in a passionate prayer for forgiveness, for light and wisdom to choose the right path, and power to walk in it without faltering to the end.

When at last she rose, her lips and eyes had regained something of their wonted serenity. She knew now that her impulse to leave the house at once had been selfish and cowardly; that Evelyn must not be deserted in a moment of bitter need; that these ten days must be endured for her sake – and for his. On his return, she could find a reasonable excuse for spending a month elsewhere till John should come to claim her. Never in all her life had she been called upon to make so supreme an effort of self-mastery; and never had she felt so certain of the ultimate result.

She turned up the lamp now, and looked her new life bravely in the face, strong in her reliance on a Strength beyond her own, – a Strength on which she could make unlimited demands; which had never failed her yet, nor ever would to the end of time.

CHAPTER XIX.

IT'S NOT MAJOR WYNDHAM

"I will endure; I will not strive to peepBehind the barrier of the days to come."– Owen Meredith.

For a few hours Honor slept soundly. But so soon as her bodily exhaustion was repaired, grief and stress of mind dragged her back to consciousness. She woke long before dawn; woke reluctantly, for the first time in her life, with a dead weight upon heart and brain; a longing to turn her face to the wall and shut out the unconcerned serenity of the new day.

But though hearts be at breaking-point, there is no shutting out the impertinent details of life. And on this particular morning Honor found herself plunged neck-deep in prose. Domestic trifles thrust themselves aggressively to the fore. Parbutti assailed her after breakfast with a voluble diatribe against the dhobi's wife, whose eldest son was going to and fro in the compound unashamed, wearing a shirt made from the Memsahib's newest jharrons. She did not feel called upon to add that her own under-jacket had begun life upon Evelyn Desmond's godown shelves. It was not a question of morals. It was the lack of a decent reserve in appropriating her due share of the Sahib's possessions which incensed the good lady against the dhobi's wife. Such unreserve in respect of matters which should be hid might rouse suspicion in other quarters; therefore it behoved Parbutti to be zealous in casting the first stone.

Honor listened with weary inattention, promised investigation of the matter, and passed on to the godown – a closet of broad shelves stocked with an incongruous assortment of household goods, and smelling strongly of kerosine oil and bar soap.

Here it was discovered that the oil had been disappearing with miraculous celerity, and Amar Singh cast aspersions on the kitmutgar and his wife. A jealous feud subsisted between him and them; and as ruler-in-chief of the Sahib's establishment, the bearer made it a point of honour to let no one cheat Desmond save himself. He had a grievous complaint to lodge against a sais, who had been flagrantly tampering with the Desmonds' grain, adding a request that the Miss Sahib would of her merciful condescension impart the matter to the Sahib. "For he sitteth much occupied, and his countenance is not favourable this morning."

Honor complied, with a half-smile at the irony of her own position, which, until to-day, she had accepted without after-thought, and which of a sudden seemed unendurable.

Desmond, much engrossed in regimental concerns, and anxious to get off to the Lines, was inclined to irritability and abruptness; and the delinquent, who, with his charger ready saddled, awaited the Sahib's displeasure in the front verandah suffered accordingly. He bowed, trembling, to the ground, and let the storm sweep over his head; making no defence beyond a disarming reiteration of his own worthlessness, and of his everlasting devotion to the Protector of the Poor.

Turning back to the hall for his helmet, Desmond encountered Honor in the doorway, and his wrath gave place to a smile of good fellowship that brought the blood into her cheeks.

"Hope my volcanics didn't horrify you," he said apologetically. "It seems almost as cowardly to fly out at those poor chaps as to strike a child; but they have a genius for tripping one up at critical moments."

He paused, and scanned her face with kindly anxiety. "You're all right again now? Not troubled any more – eh?"

"No. I'm perfectly well. Don't bother your head about me, please. You have so much more important things to think about."

Her colour deepened; and she turned so hastily away that, in spite of his impatience to be gone, Desmond stood looking after her with a troubled crease between his brows. Then he swung round on his heel, vaulted into the saddle, and straightway forgot everything except the engrossing prospect of the campaign.

But for all his preoccupation, he had not failed to note the wistfulness in Evelyn's dutifully smiling eyes. He was more than usually tender with her on his return, and successfully banished the wistfulness by giving up his polo to take her for a ride. Honor stood watching them go, through tears which rose unbidden from the depth of her lonely grief, her haunting sense of disloyalty to the two she loved. She dashed them impatiently aside the instant they moistened her lashes; and betook herself for an hour's rest and refreshment to Mrs Jim Conolly, – "Mrs Jim" was her station name, – whose open-hearted love and admiration would give her a much-needed sense of support.

She entered her friend's drawing-room without formal announcement, to find her seated on a low sofa, barricaded with piles of cotton frocks and pinafores, which had suffered maltreatment at the hands of that arch-destroyer of clothes and temper – the Indian dhobi.

"Don't get up, please," the girl said quickly, as Mrs Conolly gathered her work together with an exclamation of pleasure. "I've just come for a spell of peace and quietness, to sit at the feet of Gamaliel and learn wisdom!"

She settled herself on the carpet, – a favourite attitude when they were alone together, – and with a sigh of satisfaction leaned against her friend's knee. The older woman put an arm round her shoulders, and pressed her close. Her mother's heart went out in very real devotion to this beautiful girl, who, strong and self-reliant as she was, turned to her so spontaneously for sympathy, counsel, and love.

"Arrogant child!" she rebuked her, smiling. "Remember who it was that sat at the feet of Gamaliel! But what particular kind of wisdom are you wanting from me to-day?"

"No particular kind. I'm only liking to have you near me. One is so sure of your faith in the ultimate best, that there is encouragement in the touch of your hand."

She took it between both her own, and rested her cheek against the other's arm, hiding her face from view.

Mrs Jim smiled, not ill pleased. She was one of those rare optimists who, having frankly confronted the evil and sorrow, the ironies and inconsistencies of life, can still affirm and believe that "God's in his Heaven; all's right with the world." But an unusual note in the girl's voice perplexed her.