V.Instead of returning to London from the Camerons' place in Scotland, Cary and the Captain went to the south of France. Just what it was that had suddenly made Cary so persistent in her desire not to return to England, was not known. Trevelyan, indeed fancied that he knew, when he had finished reading Cary's brief note telling of their change of plans and their intended prolonged absence from England, and he cursed the folly that had separated him from Cary in the long months that lay ahead.To Stewart, and indeed to the world at large, she gave the old, threadbare excuse—the London climate. If Stewart ever suspected otherwise, he kept it to himself.The Captain, like Trevelyan, fancied he knew something of the cause, but the Captain was a wise man, and he asked no more than Cary chose to impart—which was next to nothing at all. Still Cary wanted to get away from London and Cary was not given to whims. The climate was a sufficiently good excuse. The fact that it was an excuse made no difference to the Captain, and to the south of France they went.They were gone all winter, traveling in a desultory way, since there was no call for haste and Cary's pleasure was the chief consideration. And Cary delighted in the quaint old towns and grew enthusiastic again over the trifles of life, as she had done as a child down by the sea-coast fort, or out on the western plains. Now it was a month at Cette, on the Gulf of Naples; then it was down to the Eastern Pyrenees, and over, and a month in Spain, and back again to France and up to Bayonne and Bordeaux, and then to Paris by easy stages, and then on to Calais and to England.There were letters from Stewart awaiting to welcome her, whenever he knew her next stopping place, and they often enclosed notes of introduction to people who could add either to her comfort or her pleasure. Stewart knew the country like a book. He had toured it on foot after his Eton days. As for London—London was duller than he had ever known it; the fogs were unusually frequent and heavy, and he was glad that she had escaped them. He hoped she was enjoying herself; she must surely see such and such a thing, or take such and such a drive. He had not taken it in years, himself, but she would tell him all about it. He supposed she would be able to brush up his French when she returned. By the way, when was she returning to England?She returned to England in the late spring and in all that time Trevelyan had not written her a line. He was at the station to meet her though, and it was he who took possession of her while the Captain and Stewart went to see about the luggage.Indeed, in the weeks that followed, London observed that it was Trevelyan who monopolized the American officer's daughter. It was Trevelyan who dropped in to afternoon tea with unfailing regularity, and fought with her, and scolded her, and laughed with her, and took her driving, or riding on the Row. His superior officer fretted and speculated at the change in the young Engineer, until he passed him one day with Cary."There's a brilliant young chap being ruined," he said crossly to his aide. "Served out his sub-lieutenancy finely, and has behaved this winter like an officer and a gentleman. Now the barracks can't hold him, and he shirks like a weak-livered chicken. Who's the girl?""An American—the daughter of a retired officer. I fancy you've often seen them together—elderly man with iron gray hair; sat next to you, but one, at the Stewarts' dinner."The aide broke off and looked fixedly after Trevelyan."Some day in danger—" he said, as if to himself.VI.Cary was drumming idly on the piano. Her attitude was the personification of listlessness. When the Captain had spoken of it that morning she said it was "the spring feeling in the air."The Captain smiled as he walked down the stairs of the lodgings."It's London climate—fog and rain—in the winter; and it's London sunshine in the spring!"Cary continued to drum on the piano after he left. Then she let her hands fall from the keys and looked absently about the room. She supposed Trevelyan would drop in later or anyhow in the evening. Trevelyan had been irreproachable since her return—since that day in Scotland.Presently she dashed into a popular song and sung it with a touch of the old gleeful enthusiasm she had left behind in France. Trevelyan loathed that song.She broke off suddenly and twirled around on her stool. Someone was knocking."Come in," she shouted, not rising, and thinking it was either Robert or John.The landlady entered bearing a card. Cary held out her hand for it."But my father is out. Please tell Captain Trevelyan—""But miss, the Captain asked for you."Cary rose."For me?"Then she laughed."Oh, you must be mistaken, but if you'll ask Captain Trevelyan up, I'll explain."She remained standing by the door of their little sitting room. She could hear the English officer tramping slowly and heavily up the stairs. She remembered Robert telling her of the charge his father had led at Inkerman, and how he had gotten that wound in his hip. After awhile she caught sight of the top of the officer's white head. She went forward to meet him and led him into the room and rolled up a big leather chair."It's Papa's favorite," she said, smiling and standing with one hand resting invitingly on the big tufted back.The English officer smiled back from under his shaggy brows, and sank into the great chair with a sigh of genuine comfort. Cary drew up a chair and sat down near him."Papa is out," she said. "He has only just gone, too. I'm so sorry. If you care to wait—and perhaps later let me give you a cup of tea—" she went on with a certain charming spontaneity, "John says my tea is almost like the tea the English girls make—" she questioned Trevelyan's father with her laughing eyes."And what does my boy say about your tea?" asked the English officer, watching her curiously."Robert? Oh, Robert never says anything nice about it. He never says nice things to me anyway," Cary pouted. "But I notice he nearly always drinks three cups when he comes and after all I believe that counts for a good deal—don't you?""Undoubtedly—for a good deal of tea! And does he often come to drink it with you?"Cary laughed."Oh—frequently," she said vaguely.The old British officer drew patterns on the floor with his cane and was silent.Cary looked at him stealthily from under her long lashes. She had only met Trevelyan's father when he had called formally on their coming to England, or sometimes when he stopped by to take the Captain to drive, and once at the Stewarts', at dinner. He had always inspired her with a certain awe. It might have been his lameness which Cary was wont to regard as a badge of an honor legion, or simply his brusque manner, not unlike his son's, but lacking much of his son's odd charm. She sometimes had fancied she had seen a physical likeness between them, and once she had caught herself wondering if the father had looked like the son in his youth and if the son would resemble more closely the father in age. She patted thoughtfully the arm of her chair."Papa will be so sorry to miss you," she began.Trevelyan's father leaned forward. He suddenly stopped drawing patterns on the floor with his cane."I did not come to see your father," he said, "I came especially when I knew he was out and you were in. I am calling on you." He smiled grimly, forcing the boy's face from his mind.Cary stared. Then she recovered herself. "Yes?" she said politely.The old officer sat up very straight grasping his cane, and then he led direct to the object of his visit, as he had led direct his famous charge into the center of the enemy's lines, on the heights of Inkerman, way back in '54."I've come to see you about that boy of mine," he said bluntly."You mean—Robert?" asked Cary slowly, and for lack of something to say."He's a good enough kind of a chap—" Cary suppressed a smile, remembering how the old man adored him, "but he's a bit hot-headed and reckless, and he's—mad over you, and—" he broke off. It seemed to him almost as though he was disloyal to the boy.Cary leaned forward with burning cheeks."And you hope he won't do anything rash—is that it?" There was a trace of indignation in her voice."Jove! no, child. I haven't come to plead for him, but to ask you to be careful.""I don't understand you," said Cary, the hot flush not fading."There! You must not be offended. You know the boy is the apple of my eye, but he isn't faultless. He has got good stuff in him if he is only moulded right, but there would be the very devil to pay—I beg your pardon—if he was ever thwarted in anything he'd set his stubborn mind on."Trevelyan's father rose and crossed over to the window and stood there looking out on the lengthening English twilight. His son's face as it had looked years ago as a baby, rose before him, but the baby had reproachful eyes."He's brave and he's strong and he's every inch a soldier; but a woman, child, needs gentleness as well as strength."The soft dim twilight crept into the room; passed the rigid form of the old soldier at the window and stole onward to the chair in which the girl sat motionless. The outline of her figure and the whiteness of her half averted cheek, showed vaguely through the gloom.After a long, long time she rose."Thank you," she said, and the unconscious dignity in her voice touched the old warrior at the window strangely. "It was good of you to think of me so kindly, even though it is not deserved and—not necessary."After a little Trevelyan's father turned, and came toward the shadowy standing figure."I understand," he said; and then: "Good-bye.""Good-bye," said Cary, gently, but she did not offer to shake hands.Half an hour later the Captain came in. The kettle was not singing, nor the curtains drawn, nor his chair rolled up in its accustomed place, with his easy slippers near by, and the red lamp was unlighted."Where is she? Where's my baby?"Cary rose from the big chair that Trevelyan's father had occupied, and came slowly forward."Here," she said, simply, her voice quiet as the deepening twilight that surrounded her, and she rubbed her cheek up and down against the Captain's.The Captain lighted the red lamp, and turned to look at her, arrested by the vague trouble in the voice.VII.Trevelyan's father walked slowly down the stairs and out into the long twilight."For all the good I've done, for all I've saved her, or learned about her real feelings for the boy, I might have spared myself the call. Gad! but she has pride though, and damn me if I don't like it! The boy hasn't got half bad taste anyway. Heaven bless the boy—and spare the woman he marries!"Then he pressed his lips together suddenly as though all had been said, and he planted his cane very firmly on the pavement with each step, swinging it very high when he raised it again. But he kept on thinking of Robert, and all the memories he had ever cherished of him, assailed him now, as though charging against the breastworks he had raised of duty. And every memory had those reproachful eyes. He, his father, had gone to plead with the woman he loved. What right had he to do this thing, questioned the eyes.The old officer walked slower.She had told him that she thanked him, but that his call had been unnecessary. Howdaredshe tell him so; how dared she be indifferent to his son, or sit in judgment on him!Yet, hadn't she a right?The old British officer paused on the corner and stared at the carriages going by, beating his cane on the curb.But he loved him, as he was, with all his faults; he loved him for his faults; and the whole thing was hard—harder than the charge at Inkerman.Then he began to think of Cary, and the more he thought of Cary, the more resolved he became on the course to be pursued, and with the strengthening resolve the reproachful eyes retreated. The boy was ruining his life here. His career of which he had once thought so much had become dwarfed by his love for a woman. In India—but there, he could prove the stuff he was made of. An officer who has seen Indian service is always a bit better than he was before, or a bit worse. He was never quite the same again. And Cary—well, that girl was worth saving, even if the boy was his own.The British officer turned into Grosvenor Square, and went up the broad steps of the house the Stewarts had rented for the past five years. He found the older Stewart in his library, as he knew he would, absorbed in the latest political news. The Scotchman looked up as he entered."Well, what do you want? I can see it is something by your face.""Yes. I want you to use your influence with the Secretary and get Robert transferred to the regiment that sails for India next month.""What?"Trevelyan's father flung himself into one of the big chairs, leaned his elbow on the edge of the table and shaded his eyes, "It could be done—I suppose, without his knowing?""Why, y-e-s, but—" Stewart broke off doubtfully.Trevelyan's father leaned forward, still shading his eyes and staring hard at his boots."I'm not much of a talker, as you know, Malcolm," he said concisely. "And what I've once done for a man I don't generally remind him of, but at Inkerman, years ago when you were a bit of a boy lieutenant, I did you a slight service—""You saved my life," said the Scotchman briefly."I suppose I did. Well, you are always harping on that, and a service to me. If you will get the boy ordered off without his suspecting—" the older Trevelyan broke off and then went on, "You're a power in politics and could do it better than I. Politics count three-fourths, now-a-days, even with the army.""I'll do it, but may I know your reason? I always fancied you liked having Robert stationed in England—"Trevelyan's father dropped the hand that was shading his eyes, with a dull thud on the table."I have. But the boy's ruining himself. He will never make even a tin soldier at this rate. He is throwing his chance of a career to the winds—and he don't care. He was reprimanded a month ago for negligence of duty, and again yesterday," the old soldier flushed, "and he don't care! It is not the easiest thing for a man to talk so about his flesh and blood, but—the boy's whole future depends on what he makes of his life now; and I would not give a penny for what it will turn out to be, if he is not hauled up with a sharp turn and gotten out of England. The boy will do the Queen and the Service honor, where there is danger to be faced and courage needed, but the idleness of barrack life—" he broke off.The elder Stewart nodded."True," he said."There is something else that has decided me. I went to call on the little American this afternoon.""Ah?""She's game, and worth the best fellow born.""Is not your Robert good enough for her?""No; but your John is."There was a long silence. Somewhere outside a carriage drove into the Square, the echo of its wheels deadened by the heavy curtains. Somewhere in the house a door closed noisily."I always used to fancy I would want a Scotch lassie, for John," said the Scotchman with a slow smile, "but lately I have not been so sure; not—so—sure!"Trevelyan's father sat silent."Out in India," he said after a while, "there will be something for him to do and think of besides the little American girl—" he rose, "You will see to it then?"The elder Stewart looked thoughtfully down at the table."Since you think it wisest—yes."* * * * *"Out in India," said Trevelyan's father, to himself as he paused on the steps of the Grosvenor Square house, and stared hard into the darkness, "But, God, how I'll miss the boy."VIII.Trevelyan had been gone a year. His orders for Indian service had been a nine days' wonder to London."Of course he will get his uncle to work him back on a home regiment or do something on the strength of his father's gallant action at Inkerman and his wound." Tom Cameron had said. "Of course he won't go.""Of course not," London had said."I'll be hanged if I'll go," Trevelyan had exploded to Stewart, and he spent most of his time between his father's chambers and his uncle's house, relieved by frantic calls to every influential man he knew. But the powers that could have worked in his behalf, remained passive, and for the first time his father and uncle refused to help him. Trevelyan wondered wildly what suddenly possessed them all, and what had become of his own persuasiveness."Jove! I should think you would be pleased," his father had said, purposely avoiding his eyes. "As a little chap you were eternally wanting to grow up and get into active service. Here you have only been vegetating in barrack life and now that you have the chance to win your spurs—""Damn the spurs," Trevelyan had said."Sorry, but I can't help you," his uncle had answered when he had made his sixth and last desperate appeal to him. "I've seen the Secretary. He says the commander of the regiment wants just such a fellow—one of the Engineers. You can't expect to remould the entire military force of the United Kingdom, my boy, when you have just about finished serving your sub-lieutenancy.""John's an Engineer and has seen Indian service too," Trevelyan had suggested moodily, and the elder Stewart had remained silent.Trevelyan continued to fight passionately against the orders until the hour of sailing.Cary went down with the family to see the transport off, and when Trevelyan caught his last glimpse of her she was standing out distinctly from the background of the faint fog that had arisen, with Stewart at her side.He turned his face away sharply and gripped at the ship's rail. Then a sudden pressure came against his throat and breast as though the strength was being crushed from him. He swallowed hard.For once, Fate had conquered Trevelyan.* * * * *He wrote to Cary just one time that year—on the voyage out—a letter that a man does not often write more than once in his life. In it were the passion and the love; the strength and weakness of his nature. On one page he stripped his heart for her, that she might know its faults, and fairly judge. On the next, he tried to vindicate his failings."I would be as clay in your hands," he wrote toward the close, "You could do with me what you would. I love you more than it is generally given to a man to love—more than an English officer should. I would desert for you, for I love you more than England and more than my honor—" and then there came a blot upon the page, that half covered the last word. The letter ended as a child's struggle ends—brokenly: and he asked her in a few disjointed sentences to be his wife.Weeks later when the letter was delivered, Cary was out with John. On her return she sat far into the night to answer it, that her reply might go back to him by the next Indian mail."Your love frightens me," she said in part, "and I cannot bind myself through time and distance. If I loved you as I should—and as Icouldlove a man—I would say 'yes'—as it is, I must say 'no.' It lies with you if my answer ever changes. I do not demand love that would prove disloyal to an officer's vow of courage in the service. I do not want such love. I am an army woman, and army women, all the world over, have one code of allegiance—which is absolute. You cheapen me when you suggest I would be satisfied with anything less. As for moulding you—a man moulds himself into the perfect and complete, or he breaks the clay with his own hands. When I marry it shall be a man whose nature is stronger than my own. It is the way of women."And Trevelyan had been gone a year.IX.At the end of the twelve months Stewart got a letter from Trevelyan.He smiled a bit curiously as he tore open the travel worn flap. He wondered what Robert had to say for himself or what he wanted. It was the first letter he had received since Robert had been ordered to India, but he laughed genuinely in the silence of the deserted club room, at the opening, and characteristic words:"This is a damnable hole! It is hot as—well I won't swear any more—but it is hotter than I ever imagined a place could be on thesurfaceof the earth. We are miles from any decent civilization, and how you can talk decently about the natives and the native regiments, staggers me! I don't trust 'em, and what's more I doubt very much if they hold me in any higher regard. But what is the good of writing so to you. You know what Indian service is. Your station was either a good deal better than mine, or you have a lot more back bone than I have. The first idea making me jealous, and the last not being conducive to self-respect, there don't seem to be any choice! To move requires a strenuous effort. The life is stagnation. It is a living death and the death numbness is creeping into my veins. They tell me that the natives have not been so quiet for years, and most of the officers and men wish they'd stir up a bit and give them some trouble. I don't. I don't want trouble. I don't believe I could fight if I had to! Damned odd, isn't it, when my blood used to boil and my head throb queer, when I was a little shaver at home and there was danger around? I guess I wasn't cut out for the Service, after all. Mactier would wonder— * * * I think I'm going mad. As you may have caught on I am writing all this with a purpose; for it is only fair for you to know what this station is, and I'm asking more than one man ought of another, but if you'd get transferred out here— There wouldn't be any trouble about the technical part of it, for the Engineers are needed bad for surveying. Your last letter said something about your getting a commission in the Gordon Highlanders—if you could only come here instead—I suppose I am selfish, but I can't get a grip on things. If—"Stewart looked up from the letter, toward the window and the street—seriously. Then he went over to the window and sat down in a big chair and leaned forward, still looking out. The noise of the passing carriages and the stir of the passing crowd crept in to meet the silence of the empty reading room. He sat motionless, heedless alike of the noise and the stillness. Once he thought of Cary, and his face changed swiftly.Then he went back to the letter and finished it, and later he re-read it, and folded it, and put it in his vest pocket. Then he went back to his old occupation of looking out of the window.The crowd was no longer one big indistinct blur, and he was vaguely conscious that he saw his mother's carriage among the others coming down the street. It came nearer and he could see that his sister was in it. There was a girl sitting beside her. The girl was Cary.* * * * *It was a week before Stewart called again at the lodgings. Cary firmly expected him the second day; grew bewildered as the evening of the fourth came and went without bringing him; on the fifth grew anxious and on the sixth wrote to him. Calling on his family just then for news was out of the question. They had gone to Brighton for a week.He came to her the day her letter reached him."I would scold you," the girl said, "if it were not for these. You never forget my violets."She buried her face in the purple bloom, before she fastened the bunch on her dress."I have left the order with the florist," said Stewart quietly. "He will send you the violets every week, and when they are gone, I have told him about your roses. I am going away."She looked up quickly from the flowers she had just fastened in her dress."For long?""I think so—yes.""Where are you going?"Stewart pulled at his gloves."India," he said briefly."You have received your orders?""Yes. I asked for them."Cary went up to him and pulled him by the sleeve."I—don't—quite—understand," she said. "I—is it the Highlanders?"He shook his head."No, it's Rob. He is just about mad enough to blow his brains out. I'm going to him.""He's sent for you?""He'saskedme to come."Stewart sat with her in the little room all that long afternoon, and they had tea together, and they watched the sunset from the windows together, as they had done almost every day that year. It would seem strange to drink tea alone and watch the sunset by herself, thought Cary."If you would sometimes write—" he suggested once."Of course, I will write," she retorted quickly.When the twilight came, he left.End of Book One.BOOK TWOTHE BREAKIN THE CLAYBOOK TWOTHE BREAK IN THE CLAYI.Trevelyan's face was the first that greeted Stewart at his journey's end.Trevelyan had been in the wildest spirits for days before Stewart's arrival, and his fellow officers spoke about the sudden change in him. For the first time in the year that Trevelyan had served with them, he became less moody and unsociable and whimsical, and they grew to think less critically of one who had never been a favorite. It was probably only the Colonel, remembering the stock from whence he sprang, who took the trouble to look beneath the inertia."The boy will come around all right in time—he's only a bit homesick and strange to the new life now. When there's an opportunity for fighting he'll show himself up true," he would say. "Why, his father at Inkerman—"And then the officer or officers of whom he had gotten hold, would be obliged to listen all over again to the story of the charge led by Trevelyan's father in the Crimea.But the story had its unconscious influence on their treatment of the young Engineer. They never really cared for him but they respected him—for what the Colonel believed he would some day be—which was all that Trevelyan seemed to desire. After their first trial at pleasantries which he had met with ill-concealed indifference, they left him to himself. They rarely saw him except at mess, or on duty, and his ungraciousness then did not help to heal the widening breach of unfavorable opinion.Toward the end of the year his fellow officers found out that he was cousin to young Stewart—Stewart who had won that honorable mention—and son of Malcolm Stewart of Aberdeen. That helped matters a little. They could pardon a chap's unpardonable moodiness for young Stewart's sake.Months later they heard that young Stewart himself had re-applied for Indian service, and that he was coming to them. It was Trevelyan who told them in confidence, first, and from then Trevelyan was changed. That night he joked them at mess, in a dry Scotch fashion, fostered long ago in the Argyll years; later he joined them at cards and proposed the toast to Stewart with a dash and a charm that made some of them wonder if they had not misjudged a deuced good chap after all.As a matter of course Trevelyan formed one of the squad of officers and men who rode over from the Station to meet young Stewart when he came. It was Trevelyan who got them started a needless hour before the time; it was Trevelyan who laughed at the dust and the heat of the long ride and bribed them, with all he possessed from the last cent of his pay, to his helmet and the braid on his uniform, to races which he always won, swinging himself far out of the saddle and stooping low to pick up withered bits of native growth from the ground as he swept past at a gallop.Trevelyan's two mess companions who had been with Stewart in the "row" where he had won his mention, imbibed something of Trevelyan's spirits, and they laughed at the dust, in their turn, and the heat, as they rode from the military station to welcome back their old comrade.They saw him long before the train had come to a dead stop and they cheered him now, in the desolate little way-station, remembering how they had cheered him that day, but it was only Trevelyan's bronzed face that Stewart saw as he descended."Hello, Bobby," he said, slapping him on the back, "You see I've come."Trevelyan looked at him queerly for a moment in silence."I knew you would. You're a—" he broke off and turned away, and the officers and men wondered what had become of Trevelyan's spirits during the return trip.Trevelyan sat up late into the night with Stewart, listening while he told of England and the home people. Once or twice Stewart mentioned Cary."How is she?" asked the younger man.He only alluded to her once again.At midnight he rose to leave."Of course there isn't anything to say to you about—your leaving England and—and all that—to come to me out here in this devilish hole—" he began disjointedly, "but it's only fair to try to say something. The fellows and the men can tell you I've been a different chap since I heard of the transfer. When I left England, and for all this year, well—I haven't much cared what happened. Out here—the loneliness without her—"He turned sharply on his heel and left.Young Stewart of the Engineers stood still in the middle of his quarters, listening to Trevelyan's footsteps growing fainter. Presently they were lost in the silence of the Indian night. Now and again came sounds from the jungle, but Stewart stood motionless.Suddenly he flung his right arm across his forehead."The loneliness without her—"And Cary, sleepless in far-away England, watched the sun rise, wondering what made the nights so long.II.Trevelyan's excitement over Stewart's coming died away as one monotonous week followed another, and he became more moody than before. Stewart tried to draw him into the life of the station, and the pastimes by which the officers and men helped to kill the long inactive days, but Trevelyan steadily refused to be won from his taciturnity. A few used to laugh at Stewart for his pains, but the majority of the mess, grew, while watching his struggle for Trevelyan, to know him better and to appreciate him more. Before, to a few, young Stewart of the Engineers had been a man with a good name; to the most of them he had been unknown, but, aside from his devotion to Trevelyan, his knowledge of surveying and military niceties, his genial spirit and his unfailing patience, won for him the distinct approval of the officers and the absolute adoration of the rank and file.He used to try to include Trevelyan in the atmosphere of approbation that surrounded himself, but Trevelyan obstinately refused even his advances.Once, indeed, one evening, Stewart got him to join a game of cards. Trevelyan did more drinking than he did playing, and three hours later, Stewart carried him to his own quarters and nursed him through the long still night.When Trevelyan awoke in the dawn of the early morning, he found Stewart still watching, and later as the wan grayness of the dawn turned to deepening gold, Stewart talked to him as an older man talks to a younger one. He spoke to him of self-respect and honor and of self-control. He spoke to him of Cary."Take a brace and redeem yourself with the mess and the men," he said, as he finished. "Where's your grit and your hold on things? You don't think you're growing more worthy of her; do you?"Trevelyan sat up, supporting himself by his rigid arms, on the palms of his hands. The light of the coming sunrise gave to his bronzed face a strange reddish hue."Think!" he exclaimed, "I wish to God I could stop thinking! Her face haunts and haunts andhauntsme! She says my love frightens her, and that it lies with me and what I make of myself, if her answer changes. I can't change my love—it's all of me; it's the soul of me, and if it frightens her—!" Trevelyan leaned forward, "I can't change myself! I can't see her; I know I'll never win her! How? I can't tell you, but I know I never shall, and I don't care what becomes of me or how soon I go to hell!"The rigidity of his arms increased and he stared straight in front of him.Stewart sprang up, his firm mouth quivering with passion."If a man had ever dared to tell me that you would talk so, I would have knocked him down. You're not worthy to be born of such a father and it's a blessing that your mother's dead. You're not worthy to have had my mother foster you ever since you were a little shaver. You're not worthy of the worst woman that ever lived. You've lost your manhood. You can be cashiered from the army—and you can go to hell! You're not worth saving!"Young Stewart of the Engineers turned on his heel and swung out of the room as he would have swung, face forward, at the head of a line, leading into action.Later when he returned Trevelyan had gone. He stood in the doorway of the deserted room and stared fixedly at where Trevelyan had lain through the night. He was himself again, and a great shame at his lost control swept over him. He had preached of self-control to Trevelyan."And I'd give my life for the boy's," he said to himself.It was remarked at mess that night that Trevelyan did not touch his food, and that he left earlier even than was his wont. Stewart followed him out into the stillness of the evening."Trevelyan," he called, following the quickly moving figure up the steps of his quarters.Trevelyan turned sharply."I don't want any more of your talk," he said. "Good-night!" And slammed the door in Stewart's face.Stewart stood there for a moment tapping his booted foot against the floor of the piazza. Then he went to his own quarters."I've come out to this cursed hole to serve the boy, and I've lost him instead! I've made a jolly mess of it all, this time!"* * * * *After that Trevelyan spent all of his "off duty" time alone. He used to go on long tramps or wild rides, returning with his horse flecked with foam and himself worn out, and his evenings were passed in his own quarters with no one better than himself for company. He would walk up and down and down and up again until he turned in, or he would take to studying Hindoostanee, or sit idly, staring into nothingness. At first he fastened his door against possible intrusion, but no one ever came, and his solitude was unbroken. Once his strained ears caught the sound of Stewart's familiar step outside and he stealthily crept over to the door and unfastened it and stood by it listening. The even steady steps came nearer, and then without halting, passed on.Trevelyan wiped his moist face. After all, why should Stewart have tried again? He had been refused so often—Stewart pushed back his ponderous volume on military engineering and stared ahead of him, his firm lips pressed close together.If there was only some way to help the boy—
V.
Instead of returning to London from the Camerons' place in Scotland, Cary and the Captain went to the south of France. Just what it was that had suddenly made Cary so persistent in her desire not to return to England, was not known. Trevelyan, indeed fancied that he knew, when he had finished reading Cary's brief note telling of their change of plans and their intended prolonged absence from England, and he cursed the folly that had separated him from Cary in the long months that lay ahead.
To Stewart, and indeed to the world at large, she gave the old, threadbare excuse—the London climate. If Stewart ever suspected otherwise, he kept it to himself.
The Captain, like Trevelyan, fancied he knew something of the cause, but the Captain was a wise man, and he asked no more than Cary chose to impart—which was next to nothing at all. Still Cary wanted to get away from London and Cary was not given to whims. The climate was a sufficiently good excuse. The fact that it was an excuse made no difference to the Captain, and to the south of France they went.
They were gone all winter, traveling in a desultory way, since there was no call for haste and Cary's pleasure was the chief consideration. And Cary delighted in the quaint old towns and grew enthusiastic again over the trifles of life, as she had done as a child down by the sea-coast fort, or out on the western plains. Now it was a month at Cette, on the Gulf of Naples; then it was down to the Eastern Pyrenees, and over, and a month in Spain, and back again to France and up to Bayonne and Bordeaux, and then to Paris by easy stages, and then on to Calais and to England.
There were letters from Stewart awaiting to welcome her, whenever he knew her next stopping place, and they often enclosed notes of introduction to people who could add either to her comfort or her pleasure. Stewart knew the country like a book. He had toured it on foot after his Eton days. As for London—London was duller than he had ever known it; the fogs were unusually frequent and heavy, and he was glad that she had escaped them. He hoped she was enjoying herself; she must surely see such and such a thing, or take such and such a drive. He had not taken it in years, himself, but she would tell him all about it. He supposed she would be able to brush up his French when she returned. By the way, when was she returning to England?
She returned to England in the late spring and in all that time Trevelyan had not written her a line. He was at the station to meet her though, and it was he who took possession of her while the Captain and Stewart went to see about the luggage.
Indeed, in the weeks that followed, London observed that it was Trevelyan who monopolized the American officer's daughter. It was Trevelyan who dropped in to afternoon tea with unfailing regularity, and fought with her, and scolded her, and laughed with her, and took her driving, or riding on the Row. His superior officer fretted and speculated at the change in the young Engineer, until he passed him one day with Cary.
"There's a brilliant young chap being ruined," he said crossly to his aide. "Served out his sub-lieutenancy finely, and has behaved this winter like an officer and a gentleman. Now the barracks can't hold him, and he shirks like a weak-livered chicken. Who's the girl?"
"An American—the daughter of a retired officer. I fancy you've often seen them together—elderly man with iron gray hair; sat next to you, but one, at the Stewarts' dinner."
The aide broke off and looked fixedly after Trevelyan.
"Some day in danger—" he said, as if to himself.
VI.
Cary was drumming idly on the piano. Her attitude was the personification of listlessness. When the Captain had spoken of it that morning she said it was "the spring feeling in the air."
The Captain smiled as he walked down the stairs of the lodgings.
"It's London climate—fog and rain—in the winter; and it's London sunshine in the spring!"
Cary continued to drum on the piano after he left. Then she let her hands fall from the keys and looked absently about the room. She supposed Trevelyan would drop in later or anyhow in the evening. Trevelyan had been irreproachable since her return—since that day in Scotland.
Presently she dashed into a popular song and sung it with a touch of the old gleeful enthusiasm she had left behind in France. Trevelyan loathed that song.
She broke off suddenly and twirled around on her stool. Someone was knocking.
"Come in," she shouted, not rising, and thinking it was either Robert or John.
The landlady entered bearing a card. Cary held out her hand for it.
"But my father is out. Please tell Captain Trevelyan—"
"But miss, the Captain asked for you."
Cary rose.
"For me?"
Then she laughed.
"Oh, you must be mistaken, but if you'll ask Captain Trevelyan up, I'll explain."
She remained standing by the door of their little sitting room. She could hear the English officer tramping slowly and heavily up the stairs. She remembered Robert telling her of the charge his father had led at Inkerman, and how he had gotten that wound in his hip. After awhile she caught sight of the top of the officer's white head. She went forward to meet him and led him into the room and rolled up a big leather chair.
"It's Papa's favorite," she said, smiling and standing with one hand resting invitingly on the big tufted back.
The English officer smiled back from under his shaggy brows, and sank into the great chair with a sigh of genuine comfort. Cary drew up a chair and sat down near him.
"Papa is out," she said. "He has only just gone, too. I'm so sorry. If you care to wait—and perhaps later let me give you a cup of tea—" she went on with a certain charming spontaneity, "John says my tea is almost like the tea the English girls make—" she questioned Trevelyan's father with her laughing eyes.
"And what does my boy say about your tea?" asked the English officer, watching her curiously.
"Robert? Oh, Robert never says anything nice about it. He never says nice things to me anyway," Cary pouted. "But I notice he nearly always drinks three cups when he comes and after all I believe that counts for a good deal—don't you?"
"Undoubtedly—for a good deal of tea! And does he often come to drink it with you?"
Cary laughed.
"Oh—frequently," she said vaguely.
The old British officer drew patterns on the floor with his cane and was silent.
Cary looked at him stealthily from under her long lashes. She had only met Trevelyan's father when he had called formally on their coming to England, or sometimes when he stopped by to take the Captain to drive, and once at the Stewarts', at dinner. He had always inspired her with a certain awe. It might have been his lameness which Cary was wont to regard as a badge of an honor legion, or simply his brusque manner, not unlike his son's, but lacking much of his son's odd charm. She sometimes had fancied she had seen a physical likeness between them, and once she had caught herself wondering if the father had looked like the son in his youth and if the son would resemble more closely the father in age. She patted thoughtfully the arm of her chair.
"Papa will be so sorry to miss you," she began.
Trevelyan's father leaned forward. He suddenly stopped drawing patterns on the floor with his cane.
"I did not come to see your father," he said, "I came especially when I knew he was out and you were in. I am calling on you." He smiled grimly, forcing the boy's face from his mind.
Cary stared. Then she recovered herself. "Yes?" she said politely.
The old officer sat up very straight grasping his cane, and then he led direct to the object of his visit, as he had led direct his famous charge into the center of the enemy's lines, on the heights of Inkerman, way back in '54.
"I've come to see you about that boy of mine," he said bluntly.
"You mean—Robert?" asked Cary slowly, and for lack of something to say.
"He's a good enough kind of a chap—" Cary suppressed a smile, remembering how the old man adored him, "but he's a bit hot-headed and reckless, and he's—mad over you, and—" he broke off. It seemed to him almost as though he was disloyal to the boy.
Cary leaned forward with burning cheeks.
"And you hope he won't do anything rash—is that it?" There was a trace of indignation in her voice.
"Jove! no, child. I haven't come to plead for him, but to ask you to be careful."
"I don't understand you," said Cary, the hot flush not fading.
"There! You must not be offended. You know the boy is the apple of my eye, but he isn't faultless. He has got good stuff in him if he is only moulded right, but there would be the very devil to pay—I beg your pardon—if he was ever thwarted in anything he'd set his stubborn mind on."
Trevelyan's father rose and crossed over to the window and stood there looking out on the lengthening English twilight. His son's face as it had looked years ago as a baby, rose before him, but the baby had reproachful eyes.
"He's brave and he's strong and he's every inch a soldier; but a woman, child, needs gentleness as well as strength."
The soft dim twilight crept into the room; passed the rigid form of the old soldier at the window and stole onward to the chair in which the girl sat motionless. The outline of her figure and the whiteness of her half averted cheek, showed vaguely through the gloom.
After a long, long time she rose.
"Thank you," she said, and the unconscious dignity in her voice touched the old warrior at the window strangely. "It was good of you to think of me so kindly, even though it is not deserved and—not necessary."
After a little Trevelyan's father turned, and came toward the shadowy standing figure.
"I understand," he said; and then: "Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Cary, gently, but she did not offer to shake hands.
Half an hour later the Captain came in. The kettle was not singing, nor the curtains drawn, nor his chair rolled up in its accustomed place, with his easy slippers near by, and the red lamp was unlighted.
"Where is she? Where's my baby?"
Cary rose from the big chair that Trevelyan's father had occupied, and came slowly forward.
"Here," she said, simply, her voice quiet as the deepening twilight that surrounded her, and she rubbed her cheek up and down against the Captain's.
The Captain lighted the red lamp, and turned to look at her, arrested by the vague trouble in the voice.
VII.
Trevelyan's father walked slowly down the stairs and out into the long twilight.
"For all the good I've done, for all I've saved her, or learned about her real feelings for the boy, I might have spared myself the call. Gad! but she has pride though, and damn me if I don't like it! The boy hasn't got half bad taste anyway. Heaven bless the boy—and spare the woman he marries!"
Then he pressed his lips together suddenly as though all had been said, and he planted his cane very firmly on the pavement with each step, swinging it very high when he raised it again. But he kept on thinking of Robert, and all the memories he had ever cherished of him, assailed him now, as though charging against the breastworks he had raised of duty. And every memory had those reproachful eyes. He, his father, had gone to plead with the woman he loved. What right had he to do this thing, questioned the eyes.
The old officer walked slower.
She had told him that she thanked him, but that his call had been unnecessary. Howdaredshe tell him so; how dared she be indifferent to his son, or sit in judgment on him!
Yet, hadn't she a right?
The old British officer paused on the corner and stared at the carriages going by, beating his cane on the curb.
But he loved him, as he was, with all his faults; he loved him for his faults; and the whole thing was hard—harder than the charge at Inkerman.
Then he began to think of Cary, and the more he thought of Cary, the more resolved he became on the course to be pursued, and with the strengthening resolve the reproachful eyes retreated. The boy was ruining his life here. His career of which he had once thought so much had become dwarfed by his love for a woman. In India—but there, he could prove the stuff he was made of. An officer who has seen Indian service is always a bit better than he was before, or a bit worse. He was never quite the same again. And Cary—well, that girl was worth saving, even if the boy was his own.
The British officer turned into Grosvenor Square, and went up the broad steps of the house the Stewarts had rented for the past five years. He found the older Stewart in his library, as he knew he would, absorbed in the latest political news. The Scotchman looked up as he entered.
"Well, what do you want? I can see it is something by your face."
"Yes. I want you to use your influence with the Secretary and get Robert transferred to the regiment that sails for India next month."
"What?"
Trevelyan's father flung himself into one of the big chairs, leaned his elbow on the edge of the table and shaded his eyes, "It could be done—I suppose, without his knowing?"
"Why, y-e-s, but—" Stewart broke off doubtfully.
Trevelyan's father leaned forward, still shading his eyes and staring hard at his boots.
"I'm not much of a talker, as you know, Malcolm," he said concisely. "And what I've once done for a man I don't generally remind him of, but at Inkerman, years ago when you were a bit of a boy lieutenant, I did you a slight service—"
"You saved my life," said the Scotchman briefly.
"I suppose I did. Well, you are always harping on that, and a service to me. If you will get the boy ordered off without his suspecting—" the older Trevelyan broke off and then went on, "You're a power in politics and could do it better than I. Politics count three-fourths, now-a-days, even with the army."
"I'll do it, but may I know your reason? I always fancied you liked having Robert stationed in England—"
Trevelyan's father dropped the hand that was shading his eyes, with a dull thud on the table.
"I have. But the boy's ruining himself. He will never make even a tin soldier at this rate. He is throwing his chance of a career to the winds—and he don't care. He was reprimanded a month ago for negligence of duty, and again yesterday," the old soldier flushed, "and he don't care! It is not the easiest thing for a man to talk so about his flesh and blood, but—the boy's whole future depends on what he makes of his life now; and I would not give a penny for what it will turn out to be, if he is not hauled up with a sharp turn and gotten out of England. The boy will do the Queen and the Service honor, where there is danger to be faced and courage needed, but the idleness of barrack life—" he broke off.
The elder Stewart nodded.
"True," he said.
"There is something else that has decided me. I went to call on the little American this afternoon."
"Ah?"
"She's game, and worth the best fellow born."
"Is not your Robert good enough for her?"
"No; but your John is."
There was a long silence. Somewhere outside a carriage drove into the Square, the echo of its wheels deadened by the heavy curtains. Somewhere in the house a door closed noisily.
"I always used to fancy I would want a Scotch lassie, for John," said the Scotchman with a slow smile, "but lately I have not been so sure; not—so—sure!"
Trevelyan's father sat silent.
"Out in India," he said after a while, "there will be something for him to do and think of besides the little American girl—" he rose, "You will see to it then?"
The elder Stewart looked thoughtfully down at the table.
"Since you think it wisest—yes."
* * * * *
"Out in India," said Trevelyan's father, to himself as he paused on the steps of the Grosvenor Square house, and stared hard into the darkness, "But, God, how I'll miss the boy."
VIII.
Trevelyan had been gone a year. His orders for Indian service had been a nine days' wonder to London.
"Of course he will get his uncle to work him back on a home regiment or do something on the strength of his father's gallant action at Inkerman and his wound." Tom Cameron had said. "Of course he won't go."
"Of course not," London had said.
"I'll be hanged if I'll go," Trevelyan had exploded to Stewart, and he spent most of his time between his father's chambers and his uncle's house, relieved by frantic calls to every influential man he knew. But the powers that could have worked in his behalf, remained passive, and for the first time his father and uncle refused to help him. Trevelyan wondered wildly what suddenly possessed them all, and what had become of his own persuasiveness.
"Jove! I should think you would be pleased," his father had said, purposely avoiding his eyes. "As a little chap you were eternally wanting to grow up and get into active service. Here you have only been vegetating in barrack life and now that you have the chance to win your spurs—"
"Damn the spurs," Trevelyan had said.
"Sorry, but I can't help you," his uncle had answered when he had made his sixth and last desperate appeal to him. "I've seen the Secretary. He says the commander of the regiment wants just such a fellow—one of the Engineers. You can't expect to remould the entire military force of the United Kingdom, my boy, when you have just about finished serving your sub-lieutenancy."
"John's an Engineer and has seen Indian service too," Trevelyan had suggested moodily, and the elder Stewart had remained silent.
Trevelyan continued to fight passionately against the orders until the hour of sailing.
Cary went down with the family to see the transport off, and when Trevelyan caught his last glimpse of her she was standing out distinctly from the background of the faint fog that had arisen, with Stewart at her side.
He turned his face away sharply and gripped at the ship's rail. Then a sudden pressure came against his throat and breast as though the strength was being crushed from him. He swallowed hard.
For once, Fate had conquered Trevelyan.
* * * * *
He wrote to Cary just one time that year—on the voyage out—a letter that a man does not often write more than once in his life. In it were the passion and the love; the strength and weakness of his nature. On one page he stripped his heart for her, that she might know its faults, and fairly judge. On the next, he tried to vindicate his failings.
"I would be as clay in your hands," he wrote toward the close, "You could do with me what you would. I love you more than it is generally given to a man to love—more than an English officer should. I would desert for you, for I love you more than England and more than my honor—" and then there came a blot upon the page, that half covered the last word. The letter ended as a child's struggle ends—brokenly: and he asked her in a few disjointed sentences to be his wife.
Weeks later when the letter was delivered, Cary was out with John. On her return she sat far into the night to answer it, that her reply might go back to him by the next Indian mail.
"Your love frightens me," she said in part, "and I cannot bind myself through time and distance. If I loved you as I should—and as Icouldlove a man—I would say 'yes'—as it is, I must say 'no.' It lies with you if my answer ever changes. I do not demand love that would prove disloyal to an officer's vow of courage in the service. I do not want such love. I am an army woman, and army women, all the world over, have one code of allegiance—which is absolute. You cheapen me when you suggest I would be satisfied with anything less. As for moulding you—a man moulds himself into the perfect and complete, or he breaks the clay with his own hands. When I marry it shall be a man whose nature is stronger than my own. It is the way of women."
And Trevelyan had been gone a year.
IX.
At the end of the twelve months Stewart got a letter from Trevelyan.
He smiled a bit curiously as he tore open the travel worn flap. He wondered what Robert had to say for himself or what he wanted. It was the first letter he had received since Robert had been ordered to India, but he laughed genuinely in the silence of the deserted club room, at the opening, and characteristic words:
"This is a damnable hole! It is hot as—well I won't swear any more—but it is hotter than I ever imagined a place could be on thesurfaceof the earth. We are miles from any decent civilization, and how you can talk decently about the natives and the native regiments, staggers me! I don't trust 'em, and what's more I doubt very much if they hold me in any higher regard. But what is the good of writing so to you. You know what Indian service is. Your station was either a good deal better than mine, or you have a lot more back bone than I have. The first idea making me jealous, and the last not being conducive to self-respect, there don't seem to be any choice! To move requires a strenuous effort. The life is stagnation. It is a living death and the death numbness is creeping into my veins. They tell me that the natives have not been so quiet for years, and most of the officers and men wish they'd stir up a bit and give them some trouble. I don't. I don't want trouble. I don't believe I could fight if I had to! Damned odd, isn't it, when my blood used to boil and my head throb queer, when I was a little shaver at home and there was danger around? I guess I wasn't cut out for the Service, after all. Mactier would wonder— * * * I think I'm going mad. As you may have caught on I am writing all this with a purpose; for it is only fair for you to know what this station is, and I'm asking more than one man ought of another, but if you'd get transferred out here— There wouldn't be any trouble about the technical part of it, for the Engineers are needed bad for surveying. Your last letter said something about your getting a commission in the Gordon Highlanders—if you could only come here instead—I suppose I am selfish, but I can't get a grip on things. If—"
Stewart looked up from the letter, toward the window and the street—seriously. Then he went over to the window and sat down in a big chair and leaned forward, still looking out. The noise of the passing carriages and the stir of the passing crowd crept in to meet the silence of the empty reading room. He sat motionless, heedless alike of the noise and the stillness. Once he thought of Cary, and his face changed swiftly.
Then he went back to the letter and finished it, and later he re-read it, and folded it, and put it in his vest pocket. Then he went back to his old occupation of looking out of the window.
The crowd was no longer one big indistinct blur, and he was vaguely conscious that he saw his mother's carriage among the others coming down the street. It came nearer and he could see that his sister was in it. There was a girl sitting beside her. The girl was Cary.
* * * * *
It was a week before Stewart called again at the lodgings. Cary firmly expected him the second day; grew bewildered as the evening of the fourth came and went without bringing him; on the fifth grew anxious and on the sixth wrote to him. Calling on his family just then for news was out of the question. They had gone to Brighton for a week.
He came to her the day her letter reached him.
"I would scold you," the girl said, "if it were not for these. You never forget my violets."
She buried her face in the purple bloom, before she fastened the bunch on her dress.
"I have left the order with the florist," said Stewart quietly. "He will send you the violets every week, and when they are gone, I have told him about your roses. I am going away."
She looked up quickly from the flowers she had just fastened in her dress.
"For long?"
"I think so—yes."
"Where are you going?"
Stewart pulled at his gloves.
"India," he said briefly.
"You have received your orders?"
"Yes. I asked for them."
Cary went up to him and pulled him by the sleeve.
"I—don't—quite—understand," she said. "I—is it the Highlanders?"
He shook his head.
"No, it's Rob. He is just about mad enough to blow his brains out. I'm going to him."
"He's sent for you?"
"He'saskedme to come."
Stewart sat with her in the little room all that long afternoon, and they had tea together, and they watched the sunset from the windows together, as they had done almost every day that year. It would seem strange to drink tea alone and watch the sunset by herself, thought Cary.
"If you would sometimes write—" he suggested once.
"Of course, I will write," she retorted quickly.
When the twilight came, he left.
End of Book One.
BOOK TWO
THE BREAKIN THE CLAY
BOOK TWO
THE BREAK IN THE CLAY
I.
Trevelyan's face was the first that greeted Stewart at his journey's end.
Trevelyan had been in the wildest spirits for days before Stewart's arrival, and his fellow officers spoke about the sudden change in him. For the first time in the year that Trevelyan had served with them, he became less moody and unsociable and whimsical, and they grew to think less critically of one who had never been a favorite. It was probably only the Colonel, remembering the stock from whence he sprang, who took the trouble to look beneath the inertia.
"The boy will come around all right in time—he's only a bit homesick and strange to the new life now. When there's an opportunity for fighting he'll show himself up true," he would say. "Why, his father at Inkerman—"
And then the officer or officers of whom he had gotten hold, would be obliged to listen all over again to the story of the charge led by Trevelyan's father in the Crimea.
But the story had its unconscious influence on their treatment of the young Engineer. They never really cared for him but they respected him—for what the Colonel believed he would some day be—which was all that Trevelyan seemed to desire. After their first trial at pleasantries which he had met with ill-concealed indifference, they left him to himself. They rarely saw him except at mess, or on duty, and his ungraciousness then did not help to heal the widening breach of unfavorable opinion.
Toward the end of the year his fellow officers found out that he was cousin to young Stewart—Stewart who had won that honorable mention—and son of Malcolm Stewart of Aberdeen. That helped matters a little. They could pardon a chap's unpardonable moodiness for young Stewart's sake.
Months later they heard that young Stewart himself had re-applied for Indian service, and that he was coming to them. It was Trevelyan who told them in confidence, first, and from then Trevelyan was changed. That night he joked them at mess, in a dry Scotch fashion, fostered long ago in the Argyll years; later he joined them at cards and proposed the toast to Stewart with a dash and a charm that made some of them wonder if they had not misjudged a deuced good chap after all.
As a matter of course Trevelyan formed one of the squad of officers and men who rode over from the Station to meet young Stewart when he came. It was Trevelyan who got them started a needless hour before the time; it was Trevelyan who laughed at the dust and the heat of the long ride and bribed them, with all he possessed from the last cent of his pay, to his helmet and the braid on his uniform, to races which he always won, swinging himself far out of the saddle and stooping low to pick up withered bits of native growth from the ground as he swept past at a gallop.
Trevelyan's two mess companions who had been with Stewart in the "row" where he had won his mention, imbibed something of Trevelyan's spirits, and they laughed at the dust, in their turn, and the heat, as they rode from the military station to welcome back their old comrade.
They saw him long before the train had come to a dead stop and they cheered him now, in the desolate little way-station, remembering how they had cheered him that day, but it was only Trevelyan's bronzed face that Stewart saw as he descended.
"Hello, Bobby," he said, slapping him on the back, "You see I've come."
Trevelyan looked at him queerly for a moment in silence.
"I knew you would. You're a—" he broke off and turned away, and the officers and men wondered what had become of Trevelyan's spirits during the return trip.
Trevelyan sat up late into the night with Stewart, listening while he told of England and the home people. Once or twice Stewart mentioned Cary.
"How is she?" asked the younger man.
He only alluded to her once again.
At midnight he rose to leave.
"Of course there isn't anything to say to you about—your leaving England and—and all that—to come to me out here in this devilish hole—" he began disjointedly, "but it's only fair to try to say something. The fellows and the men can tell you I've been a different chap since I heard of the transfer. When I left England, and for all this year, well—I haven't much cared what happened. Out here—the loneliness without her—"
He turned sharply on his heel and left.
Young Stewart of the Engineers stood still in the middle of his quarters, listening to Trevelyan's footsteps growing fainter. Presently they were lost in the silence of the Indian night. Now and again came sounds from the jungle, but Stewart stood motionless.
Suddenly he flung his right arm across his forehead.
"The loneliness without her—"
And Cary, sleepless in far-away England, watched the sun rise, wondering what made the nights so long.
II.
Trevelyan's excitement over Stewart's coming died away as one monotonous week followed another, and he became more moody than before. Stewart tried to draw him into the life of the station, and the pastimes by which the officers and men helped to kill the long inactive days, but Trevelyan steadily refused to be won from his taciturnity. A few used to laugh at Stewart for his pains, but the majority of the mess, grew, while watching his struggle for Trevelyan, to know him better and to appreciate him more. Before, to a few, young Stewart of the Engineers had been a man with a good name; to the most of them he had been unknown, but, aside from his devotion to Trevelyan, his knowledge of surveying and military niceties, his genial spirit and his unfailing patience, won for him the distinct approval of the officers and the absolute adoration of the rank and file.
He used to try to include Trevelyan in the atmosphere of approbation that surrounded himself, but Trevelyan obstinately refused even his advances.
Once, indeed, one evening, Stewart got him to join a game of cards. Trevelyan did more drinking than he did playing, and three hours later, Stewart carried him to his own quarters and nursed him through the long still night.
When Trevelyan awoke in the dawn of the early morning, he found Stewart still watching, and later as the wan grayness of the dawn turned to deepening gold, Stewart talked to him as an older man talks to a younger one. He spoke to him of self-respect and honor and of self-control. He spoke to him of Cary.
"Take a brace and redeem yourself with the mess and the men," he said, as he finished. "Where's your grit and your hold on things? You don't think you're growing more worthy of her; do you?"
Trevelyan sat up, supporting himself by his rigid arms, on the palms of his hands. The light of the coming sunrise gave to his bronzed face a strange reddish hue.
"Think!" he exclaimed, "I wish to God I could stop thinking! Her face haunts and haunts andhauntsme! She says my love frightens her, and that it lies with me and what I make of myself, if her answer changes. I can't change my love—it's all of me; it's the soul of me, and if it frightens her—!" Trevelyan leaned forward, "I can't change myself! I can't see her; I know I'll never win her! How? I can't tell you, but I know I never shall, and I don't care what becomes of me or how soon I go to hell!"
The rigidity of his arms increased and he stared straight in front of him.
Stewart sprang up, his firm mouth quivering with passion.
"If a man had ever dared to tell me that you would talk so, I would have knocked him down. You're not worthy to be born of such a father and it's a blessing that your mother's dead. You're not worthy to have had my mother foster you ever since you were a little shaver. You're not worthy of the worst woman that ever lived. You've lost your manhood. You can be cashiered from the army—and you can go to hell! You're not worth saving!"
Young Stewart of the Engineers turned on his heel and swung out of the room as he would have swung, face forward, at the head of a line, leading into action.
Later when he returned Trevelyan had gone. He stood in the doorway of the deserted room and stared fixedly at where Trevelyan had lain through the night. He was himself again, and a great shame at his lost control swept over him. He had preached of self-control to Trevelyan.
"And I'd give my life for the boy's," he said to himself.
It was remarked at mess that night that Trevelyan did not touch his food, and that he left earlier even than was his wont. Stewart followed him out into the stillness of the evening.
"Trevelyan," he called, following the quickly moving figure up the steps of his quarters.
Trevelyan turned sharply.
"I don't want any more of your talk," he said. "Good-night!" And slammed the door in Stewart's face.
Stewart stood there for a moment tapping his booted foot against the floor of the piazza. Then he went to his own quarters.
"I've come out to this cursed hole to serve the boy, and I've lost him instead! I've made a jolly mess of it all, this time!"
* * * * *
After that Trevelyan spent all of his "off duty" time alone. He used to go on long tramps or wild rides, returning with his horse flecked with foam and himself worn out, and his evenings were passed in his own quarters with no one better than himself for company. He would walk up and down and down and up again until he turned in, or he would take to studying Hindoostanee, or sit idly, staring into nothingness. At first he fastened his door against possible intrusion, but no one ever came, and his solitude was unbroken. Once his strained ears caught the sound of Stewart's familiar step outside and he stealthily crept over to the door and unfastened it and stood by it listening. The even steady steps came nearer, and then without halting, passed on.
Trevelyan wiped his moist face. After all, why should Stewart have tried again? He had been refused so often—
Stewart pushed back his ponderous volume on military engineering and stared ahead of him, his firm lips pressed close together.
If there was only some way to help the boy—