X.Trevelyan's hurt shoulder healed rapidly, and two weeks later, Mackenzie discharged him, and he reported for duty again."The row's all over, I hear," he said later, to the little subaltern.The little subaltern nodded ruefully."Yes, and holy smoke, didn't the chicken-hearted things run when they caught sight of us. We gave it to 'em hot, though! Guess they'll let off their funny business for a time, and—" the little subaltern grew suddenly sober, "Of course, you've heard about Pearson and Bennett and the men?"Trevelyan nodded."Yes," he said, and the little subaltern never knew how gladly Trevelyan would lay down his life if he could have Pearson's or Bennett's chance—or the chance of the men.Trevelyan went down the long piazza to his own quarters.He had been in the hospital having his shoulder dressed and caring for Stewart, who was still ill; when they had brought Pearson and Bennett and the men back to the Station.And through all the years of his life he would never have Pearson's or Bennett's chance, or the chance of Pearson's or Bennett's burial. He would die as other men died, who had failed in life; he would never be brought back from the front; he would never fall defending the Service and England.* * * * *A month later he filed his resignation papers, preparatory to having them endorsed and sent to the War Office.The Colonel was in a fighting humor when the matter was brought up to him next day! The son of Trevelyan of Inkerman fame! And he sent for Trevelyan and talked to him of his duty to the Service, and the Queen, and the colonial policy of England, and a good deal more; but Trevelyan was firm. The Colonel grew apoplectic; still, Trevelyan was unmoved. Then, the Colonel, who had never lost a battle in his life, retreated ungraciously, trying to think of some reason why the order should not be endorsed and—failed. He had inquired into the shoulder affair, but that was explained by the little subaltern, who testified that he had seen and spoken to Trevelyan the moment before the shot. Trevelyan had been all eagerness to go. He had not paid any attention to the report, thinking some of the men were probably practicing at target. The Colonel had gone over that matter carefully. Then, in spite of the injury, Trevelyan had offered to undertake the survey—the Colonel could not get around that—even though he was not fit. Trevelyan might have been unpopular in the regiment, but he had always done his duty as an officer of the Service. And so the Colonel wrathfully saw the application go off on the next mail to England.And then Trevelyan waited; waited as a man waits for the warrant that is to close his lease on life; and, as though to make the most of the time remaining, when he was not on duty, or with Stewart in the hospital, he was with the younger officers of the mess. They grew, then, to know a new phase in his character. He no longer closed the door of his quarters on them; it was Trevelyan's room to which they flocked; it was Trevelyan who joked them and teased them and smoked with them, and who played tennis with the garrison girls, and drank tea with the officers' wives; it was Trevelyan, with his great strength and courage, who shared their pastimes and helped to kill the long, inactive days that had settled back over the Station like a pall. Even the little subaltern ceased to dress up regardless in white linen and go and drink tea with Jessica Q, and became Trevelyan's shadow instead.Weeks later the official acceptance of the resignation came. It was handed to him at mess. He glanced at it indifferently and laid it to one side. Later, he left. He did not join the crowd that evening. He went back to his own quarters and closed the door and drew to the covering at the window, and he sat down in the dark and fought it out alone.Two hours after he went over to the hospital to make his nightly inquiry for Stewart.Stewart had had a bad day, they told him. It was a case for time.He did not go in to see Stewart that night.He wished that he could have waited and taken Stewart home, he thought, as he retraced his steps to his dark bungalow, but it might be months before Stewart could bear the journey, and Stewart would not hear of his waiting. Perhaps, it was because Stewart was not strong enough to bear the sight of Trevelyan's face, with its imprint of despair; it might have been he fancied something of the despair would lift when Trevelyan was once again in Scotland. At any rate, he had ordered Trevelyan home and Trevelyan had planned to leave—alone.The next day he dismantled his quarters and made his preparations. He packed his uniforms and his helmets and his sword, and sent them home—to Scotland, to Mactier's care.In the morning he put on civilian's clothes and left the Station.* * * * *The stretch of distant land grew clearer with each throb of the ship engine's heart.The long voyage was over and Trevelyan was coming back to England.And he had betrayed his allegiance to England because he had loved! * * *He leaned over the ship's rail and looked idly at the whirling foam, that beat an angry protest at its birth against the ship's great side, and then grew less and lost itself in the deep waters of the Channel.Had he loved Cary? he questioned. Had he not mistaken the baser passion for the diviner love that alone is built on honor?She had told him to mould himself into the divine and he had broken the clay instead.His eyes rested somberly on the long green line of land. All his honor and allegiance, with which he had broken faith, came back to him and filled him with unspeakable emotion.He would stoop and he would gather up the broken pieces and remould them for the service of England.End of Book Two.BOOK THREETHEPOTTER'S TOUCHBOOK THREETHE POTTER'S TOUCHI.The long months had swelled into two years and more before Trevelyan came home—to England and to Cary.Cary and the Captain had spent one winter in Palestine and on the Nile, and the summers in travel. When the Captain mildly suggested Italy or a return to America on the dawning of the second winter, Cary shook her head and begged for London and the old lodgings. Cary, for some reason never spoke of going home now. And so the Captain took her back to London, and Cary seemed to enjoy the great familiar city, better than all the sights and novelties of Egypt and the Holy Land.The weekly gift of violets or of roses began again with her return to England. Now and then, letters came from John, but they were not frequent, and were, to Cary's critical judgment, unsatisfactory. Of course, she was glad to hear of the life of the Station, and what the men and officers did to pass the off-duty time; and how the army women spent the days in India, and how they all kept cool—or tried to. It was kind of John, too, to think to tell her all the details, and the account of their hunting trip and the "man-eater" Trevelyan had killed,—Cary wondered if the skin was for her—and what their quarters looked like, but somehow Cary wanted more. She wasn't quite sure what she did want; perhaps she told herself it was some more definite mention of Trevelyan. Trevelyan never wrote.She thought of Trevelyan often, and in the silences of the night she would sometimes recall the blackness and the thunder of that Scottish storm, and the terror of the hour without its charm would come back to her and she would cower among her white pillows and shut, very fast, her eyes.In the fall the Camerons had asked her to a house party but for some reason she herself could not define, she sent regrets. The Camerons' place was so near his home! She wondered if it were because he would not be there, or if she would be afraid when she saw his home again. When Trevelyan came back—But she was lonelier in the late afternoon when the Captain had gone to walk, than at any part of the day, and she would sit with idle hands folded in her lap and look at the silent little tea-kettle on the tea-table; or rise and watch the sunset, quite alone. She wasn't ever afraid then, she was only unutterably lonely! Perhaps when Trevelyan came back—And then Trevelyan did come back. She heard it from the Captain one afternoon, and it was then the Captain told her, gently, of the delayed accounts of Stewart's and Trevelyan's part in the native struggle. There were no details regarding them; it was only known certainly, that both Stewart and Trevelyan had been hurt; that Stewart was still ill at the Station, and that Trevelyan had sent in a resignation. His return was expected. They would have to wait.They waited; and Cary grew older in the waiting.Little by little details were added to the story, and she would go around to the Stewarts' and talk it over with John's mother and John's sister, and women-like they would try to fit the ill-formed pieces together.Then she would go back slowly to the lodgings.She had waited so long for Trevelyan to come home, and she had thought to welcome him in promotion; she had dreamed that some day Trevelyan would do something great for the Service and for England; she had believed it, and now—Trevelyan was coming home—resigned; and all her dreams and all her faith had not been worth while.II.Trevelyan had landed. The Captain saw it in the morning paper and read the item out to Cary. The ship had gotten in a day before it had been looked for.Cary pushed back her untasted cup of coffee, and she remained in doors all day, unconsciously listening for his footfall on the stairs, and when night came without bringing him, she laughed at herself for fancying that he would come direct to her.It was three days before he did come and she met him on the stairs. She was about to do some delayed shopping, and as she was going down, she met him coming up. She turned and they went back to the quiet little sitting room together, and she ran over to the window impetuously and flung back the curtains."Come here," she said, gaily, "I can scarcely believe it is you, yourself! Come here, and let me see your Indian tan!"He smiled a little, obeying her, but he did not meet her eyes.Couldhe ever tell her? he wondered."Why you haven't got half the tan I expected! You're not chocolate at all!" she said like a grieved child.He forgot the haunting shadow for a moment and he laughed genuinely."I'm sorry I don't please you.""You don't please me at all," Cary pouted. "You're not chocolate, and you haven't returned a captain, and you're not in uniform with a medal on your breast, and what is worse than everything, you've grown chicken-hearted and turned your back on the Service and run away."He winced."And you're as solemn as a funeral, and you haven't told me you're glad to see me, and—you don't please me at all!""That's a nice greeting for a chap!""Well—you deserve it!" Cary retorted; then she brightened up, "And you really got hurt? Did it come just 'within a shade of a vital spot,' like it always does in the story books?""I got a scratch.""Good boy! How did it happen? You must sit down and tell me all about it. Was it one of those horrid natives?"Trevelyan sat down near the window in the deep shadow of the curtains. He put his hand to his head and pressed it there tightly for a moment."No," he said, "It wasn't one of the natives. It was my own revolver.""What?"Trevelyan faltered."Must you hear the story to-day? Won't you wait? It's so long since I've seen you—"If this brief hour could only be his, unspoiled, to remember!"Don't be aggravating," said Cary, "I'm interested, and I want to hear." She could not have told why a dull weight should suddenly have laid itself upon her.Trevelyan sat silent."First," he said presently, playing with the tassel of the curtain cord, "first, let me tell you about John."She flushed. She had forgotten John in the dread that lay upon her."Yes, please tell me about John. Is he coming home soon?""When he is able to bear the journey—and I believe a little before. He is sick for a sight of England." Trevelyan let the last words fall slowly. He had thought to add "of you."After a moment he went on."I had a long talk with Mackenzie—the surgeon, you know—before I left. He says the wound hurt something in the back and went clear through to the lung. He'll have to get out of the Service."Cary rose quickly. She went over to the piano and stood there pressing her hands against the top and hiding her face on them."It's too cruel," she moaned, "both you fellows—out of the Service!It's too cruel!"Trevelyan knit and unknit his fingers, and was silent."He'll be all right—in time," he said slowly, with a dim idea of giving her comfort, "but he just won't be physically strong enough again for the army.""And you've resigned!"Trevelyan still sat in the shadows cast by the curtains. He was massing all his courage and his strength against his love."Cary!" She raised her head from her arms, and she shivered at the tone of his voice, without knowing why. "Cary, if you'll come over here—I'll tell you why—" he broke off.She obeyed him mechanically."Sit down."She did as he bade her."Shall I light the lamp?" she faltered. "The days are short and—and it's dark—""No, not yet. Sit here where I can see your face by the fire. There! Like that!"And then he began on the cause and the details of the native trouble. She moved restlessly. She did not understand the technicalities very well, and the odd dread and oppression would not lift. She was conscious that Trevelyan's voice filled the room, but she scarcely heeded his words. And then he told her of Stewart and something of what Stewart had tried to do for him, and grew eloquent over it, and she forgot herself and the dread in listening to him. Even on the day of the storm in Scotland, when he had told her the stories of his childhood, he had not been as eloquent as this. Then he halted. After a while he resumed. He did not pause again, but went on rapidly with the old resoluteness born afresh, now that he had once begun. He continued steadily, mercilessly, leading up to the heart of it as he would have aimed at and hit the bull's eye at target practice with an unerring hand."And the Colonel ordered me to make the survey. It meant danger and probable death, and—I was afraid. I shot myself to prevent going. I lied about it. I said the revolver had gone off. He sent John."He leaned forward, grim with the grimness of despair, and the moisture came out on his face and his throbbing throat, but she did not see his face, she only heard the words that fell heavily on the silence.She rose to her feet; he could see her, in the beauty of her height, silhouetted against the bright firelight. Her breast was rising and falling quickly with emotion."I don't believe it," she cried. "There is nothing that will make me believe it! Why, you're not afraid of anything! You to turn coward!"She paused, waiting for his denial, and remained standing.He rose too; came from out of the shadows and sat down in the Captain's big chair by the fire, where she could see and read his face."I was afraid," he repeated.It was as if he knew no other word.She went over to him and dropped down by the chair, and looked up at him."Tell me that it isn't true," she said. "If you tell me that it isn't true, I'll believe you against the world.""It is true," he said.The girl pressed the palms of her hands against her cheeks and drew them slowly down, away from her face.Suddenly she rose to her feet and leant over, looking steadily into his face.The shadowy spaces at the ends of the room grew and came to meet each other.She looked down into his face searchingly and in silence, and he met her look as a brave man meets death—squarely. Her hand dropped from his shoulder and fell at her side lifelessly. She shrank away."Good God," she whispered.She went over into the shadows, to the window and stood looking out, motionless. It seemed to her that she could never look at him again."John saw me," said Trevelyan, over by the fire, "and he swore me to keep quiet about it—except to you; he left that to me to decide—he made me swear to resign. I wasn't fit to serve England."He spoke without emotion and briefly, stating facts.After awhile he went over to her in an uncertain manner. She shrank closer to the window."Don't come near me," she said in a low voice.He went back and sat down by the fire. The minutes passed."If you would say something to me,—" he began, looking toward her.She came out of the shadows into the firelight."Thereisnothing to say," she said, and her face looked then like the face on the hospital wall."I know it," he answered.She covered her face with her hands, and turned quickly and fell down by a chair, burying her face in its cushions, and sobbing as though to break her heart.Trevelyan did not move to go to her; he did not even look at her as she was crying there over his lost honor. Honor was so much to her. He had always known it. Perhaps it was for that he had first loved her.After awhile she moved and leaned one elbow on the seat of her chair, her cheek in her hand. She turned her face, looking into his."I—I didn't mean to be cruel," she said, and her voice caught in sobs as she spoke. "I was—selfish. I—was only thinking of—myself. Of—of how I'd trusted you, and—and that! But oh, I'm—so sorry for—you. I—" she broke off, impatiently brushing the tears away with her hand.Trevelyan stared into the fire."Don't talk that way," he said slowly, "I can bear anything but—that!""What—what made you—afraid?"He left the big chair by the fire and came over to where she was sitting on the floor, and looked down at her."I was afraid I should never see you again," he said. "I—" and he put out his hand as though to touch her hair, "I wish—well I wish, I had known there was something besides you in the world!"She said nothing."What are you going to do now?" she asked after awhile."I don't know," he said slowly, "I—don't—know!"He turned abruptly and picked up his coat and hat. He did not offer to shake hands in parting. Cary had used to help him on with his coat and shake hands, but Cary did not move to-night. He walked over to the door, turning to look back at her."Good night," he said, in a matter of fact way, "Good-bye."Cary sat motionless and she looked up at him dumbly."Good-bye," he repeated."Good-bye," she said slowly.Trevelyan took the night train home—to Scotland and to old Mactier. Perhaps up there, he would learn "what he was going to do now."Cary sat motionless, in the shadows, by the big chair. After awhile she crept over to the dead fire and stared at the white ashes. It seemed to her that all her faith was dead.III.After Trevelyan had come and gone, each day seemed to Cary like the one before; and they all stretched out, crushed and dead and lifeless, as a string of pearls from which the luster has disappeared.After awhile there were rumors that Stewart was coming home; that Stewart was making a desperate effort to come home—to England. London was agog—Stewart's part of London. Everyone by this time had gotten a pretty clear idea of affairs, and because Stewart had come up to what they had expected of him, and had faced danger and death like the soldier he was, and had generally conducted himself like a gentleman,—London was pleased. London, like a woman, derived satisfaction in saying, "I always knew it. I told you so."Little by little the excitement penetrated Cary's inertia. After all, it was not quite fair that because one man had broken her faith and his honor, she should judge all men by him. John had not failed her. Perhaps John would pull things straight again for her, and make her see life as she ought.The warm days of early spring came—the English spring and the sunshine, and there was no need any longer for a fire on the hearth, and every day brought the ship nearer, and every fair breeze helped to bring him into port quicker—John, coming back, sick and wounded for life, from battle.After all, she had forgotten that part of it—his part; and his burden that was heavier than her own, and Trevelyan's burden, that was heavier than all.After awhile she brought a pity, wholly womanly and half divine, out of the ashes that had seemed so dead, and on the awful truth of these men's lives, broken by the failure of one, she built the mercy that is stronger than justice, and the faith that is stronger than doubt.Something, though, remained in the ashes, dead, never to be rekindled, and woman-like she used to cry a little over the dead part of it; not because she could not relight it, but because it was so dead.She grew into a woman in those weeks lapsing between Trevelyan's call and Stewart's return—gradually, as clay is moulded in the hands of a potter, who cuts it on his wheel, to give to it the finer tracings and the smoothness of completion.And every day and every fair breeze brought Stewart nearer, and Cary turned from the ashes to the sunsets again. Fires would go out, even with careful tending, but the sunsets were God's, Cary told herself, and, therefore, eternal.IV.Malcolm Stewart went down to Southampton to meet the ship and bring John back to London."No excitement," the doctor had said, and so he had gone alone.Now that young Stewart had really accomplished the task of getting back to England, his false strength deserted him and he became weaker than before. The two men, the sturdy father and the wasted son, made the journey to town, John being carried to and from the railway carriages.For a moment, when he reached London, and the carriage was turning into Grosvenor Square, he rallied a little and insisted on getting out of the carriage himself, and walking up the steps, leaning heavily on his father's arm."We won't frighten the Little Madre," he had said.The tall, womanly figure of the Little Madre. who had been standing by the window for the last hour, appeared at the door, silently holding out her arms.After awhile they got him up to his own room and to bed, and all day the Little Madre sat by him, tending to his few wants. Once he fell asleep, and when he awoke the room was full of flowers."What is it?" he asked his mother feebly, "Where did they come from?""From friends," she said, rising and moving from one great bunch to another. "The white and pink roses are from Cousin Kenneth's wife," and so she went on. "The heather and the bracken came without a name. I think they must be from Rob—don't you?"She paused, turning to him questioningly. Stewart swallowed."Probably," he said, in a low voice."The Camerons sent the lilies, and those red roses are from the old Major of the Department—you should read the card," she smiled proudly, coming back to his bed.He smiled at her eagerness, and laid the card down."That's pretty nice, isn't it?" he asked.And then he looked up at her."But the violets?" he asked slowly. "Who left the violets?""The violets are from Cary," she replied, meeting his look.A slow flush mounted over his pale face."Please bring them here."She did so, holding them close to his face that he might smell of them before she put the little vase on the table by him. He took them out of the water, feebly, and laid them on the bed."Everyone is awfully kind," he said, "and I don't deserve the fuss. Have—many inquired—to-day?""All my visiting list," she replied, laughingly, "and a good many more besides. Why the officers—" she paused, shaking her head."Has—Cary called?" he asked, looking hard at the foot board of the bed."Yes, and left the flowers herself. You are to see her—" she broke off, anxiously watching the haggard face that he turned quickly to her own."When?""In three or four days—if you are stronger. She shall be the first."His mother leaned over him, stroking his hair from his forehead. He met her eyes gravely.The late sunlight sifted through the drawn curtains and touched the flowers; their exquisite odor crept through the stillness of the room as the sweet memory of an old song steals through the silent chambers of the heart."I love her," he said simply. "I have loved her always," he said, still looking into her eyes.She smiled."I have known it always," she answered.But the four days lengthened into four weeks before he saw Cary. That night the half healed wound reopened, and he had a sinking spell.The next morning before the news had had time to become generally known, Trevelyan mysteriously appeared at the house on Grosvenor Square, and went straight to Stewart's room."You go and lie down," he said briefly to his aunt, who had been up all night, "I guess I ought to know how to take care of him. I did it once before in India. I won't leave you until I've pulled him through."And then Trevelyan and Death fought it out again, and Trevelyan beat back the Shadowy Presence in the great still London house, as he had done weeks before in the government hospital in India. He hardly left the sick room, and he seemed scarcely ever to sleep. He would sit for hours at a time, his finger on Stewart's pulse; quieting his ravings and forcing back the fever by the might of his own will.Except in the dim sick room where Stewart lived again in delirium the night of the perilous ride, over the great Grosvenor Square house rested the hush of grave sickness and impending death. The servant stationed at the door, guarded against the possible ringing of the muffled bell, and answered inquiries, and received the cards left, and the offerings of flowers. None ever reached Stewart's darkened room except the small bunch of violets that came daily, and which his mother would bring up and place on the table by his bed, hoping in woman-fashion that the perfume might attract and hold his wandering faculties, or arouse him from the stupor into which he would fall from time to time; but it never did. If she had ever dreamed of the exquisite torture the flowers and their scent were to Trevelyan, she would have placed them with the others down stairs, but Trevelyan never told, and she never knew the moments in which the perfume seemed to drive him mad.Once she suggested getting a professional nurse to relieve him, but catching sight of Trevelyan's face she had stopped short."There! Forgive me," she said. "It is not that I don't trust you, or am ungrateful or believe that anyone else could do so well, but I am afraid for you.""I'm all right," Trevelyan had answered shortly."You are unselfish; you are only thinking of us and of John. You are always thinking and doing for John.""Don't!" he interrupted, and through the dimness of the room she could see that his face quivered, and she wondered."I could not get along without you," she went on. "None of us could, and it has been you who have pulled him through so far."She looked toward the long, motionless figure on the bed."I shall pull him through to-night and to-morrow, and to-morrow again, and next week—until he is out of danger," said Trevleyan.That was the day the two doctors had given Stewart up.The crisis came and passed, and Stewart lived.When the thralldom and the stupor of the fever had partly lifted, and before Stewart came to himself, Trevelyan left and went back to Scotland and to old Mactier, nor could anyone persuade him to remain.Days later, when Stewart was sitting up, he saw Cary for the first time."There is some one waiting outside whom you will be glad to see," his mother had said."It is Cary? You are going to let me see Cary?" he cried."If you will be good and not talk," she answered, leaving the door ajar.Stewart turned his face to the door, pressing his long, thin fingers resting on his knee, close together.She came in carrying a bunch of violets, and stood by his chair, looking down at him. He looked up at her, and it seemed to him that she was beautiful, and her voice the sweetest he had ever heard."I have waited and wanted so to give you these myself," she said, "and you have frightened us all so."She spoke with the simplicity of a little girl, but there was a quality in her voice that Stewart had not heard before, and he knew that Cary had become a woman.He clung to her hand in parting with that pathetic bodily weakness that makes a man, in illness, like a child."Don't go yet," he pleaded, "You've been here such a little while. Oh,pleasedon't go!"She patted his hand."I will come again," she said, and on her way to the door, she kept looking back at him and smiling. He sat motionless until her light footstep was lost in the distance, and all day he sat quiet, scarcely speaking, dreaming of her.The next day he waited, expecting her, but she did not come; nor the next."What's become of Cary?" he asked on the third day of his mother. "Why don't she come any more?""I suppose she thinks you're out of danger now, and she may have other things to do.""If that isn't just the way of women! Coming all the time when a chap don't know anything or anybody, and then just when he needs cheering—" he broke off, pulling viciously at the shawl over his feet.His mother smiled, knowing better "the way of women."But two days later, when Cary called again, she spoke to her of his loneliness."He gets tired of the home faces," she said, "and he isn't strong enough yet to see the men or strangers. Perhaps if you could read aloud to him now and then——""Why, of course I could," said Cary, and after that she came oftener. They would carry Stewart down to his mother's cheerful little sitting room, and there one or more of the family would gather and Cary would talk or read aloud. At such times Stewart would lean back in his chair among his pillows and remain silent, content to look at her and to listen to her voice. One day they were left alone together. He remained quiet, his eyes fixed on her. Presently she finished the chapter and turned the page."I think that was a pretty strong scene, don't you?" she asked, pausing for a moment before she went on, and peering at him gravely over the top of the book."Yes—it was," he answered absently."You weren't listening to a word of it," she exclaimed reproachfully.He laughed."To tell you the truth—no. Put the wretched old thing down and talk to me."She laid the book down as he had bidden, but she played nervously with the leaves."What shall I talk about?""Oh, anything—yourself.""Upon my word, but you're polite. There isn't an earthly thing to tell about myself," she added, "And I don't know any topic that would interest you. There's that House of Commons speech, of course, but——""Then I'll talk to you.""Oh, youmustn't!" She looked up startled, "Sir Archibald said you were not to exert yourself.""Confound the old codger, anyway! Does he expect to keep me tongue-tied the rest of my life?"Cary laughed."You're cross to-day," she said. "You're getting better. It's a sure sign."Stewart leaned forward suddenly; then he leaned back and traced an outline of a sword on the leather arm of the chair."Did you know," he asked her slowly, "that as far as the Service is concerned, I'm done for—that I'll never be well enough for it again; that I've been injured beyond hope for the Service; that I've had to resign?""Yes," said Cary gently, looking hard at the book in her lap."Thirty and—done for," he said bitterly, "All the Woolwich years to count for nothing; all the study; all the ambition, all the—hope, to count for nothing!" His finger paused in tracing the outline of the sword."Oh, you mustn't say that," cried Cary, "you must remember what you've done already—more than many older officers do in their whole lives. And then—"He interrupted her."That sounds well," he said. "But life isn't worth much to a man when he's laid on the shelf just when he's beginning to live— But the wasted years and the inactive life ahead!" He went on rapidly, beating the fist of one hand against the palm of the other. "Oh, think what inactivity will mean after the life I've been trained to, and worked for, and loved!"She sat silent, her heart throbbing with a great pity."To have to think of myself—to look out for draughts like a sickly, nervous old man!" Something rose in Stewart's throat, and he coughed. "Can't ever command the men again! Can't lead them to battle, or ever feel the soft earth under me, or see the stars and the night through the flap of my tent! To have to give up trying to be something, or do something—at thirty!"He stopped short.The book fell from Cary's lap to the floor, and she stooped to pick it up with swimming eyes. He caught sight of her face and he leaned forward; all the anger and all the resentment gone from his voice—melted by her tears."Bah!" he said, "That's just about the fate I'm fit for if I haven't got any more grit than that! Of course I didn't mean it, and you must try and forget it. Of course the Service is out of the question, but Iwillmake something of my life! And I'm awfully glad, too, for what I've had of it, and—been allowed to do. I'm glad for the Woolwich years and—and the training—and—all that! Of course it hasn't been lost. And I'm glad I've done something for the Service—even in a little way, and saved—" he caught himself up suddenly.Cary rose, her tears dried by the burning fever in her eyes. She finished the sentence."Saved Robert from exposure!"He looked up quickly."I—I don't understand you.""Oh, yes, you do too," said Cary, breathing hard. "You think I don't know all about it! I do, though!""How?""Robert told me himself."Stewart drew a deep breath and looked away. There was a long silence in the room. After awhile she went up to the big leather chair and laid one hand on the back of it and bent her head, looking down at him."Johnny?"He looked up, his firm mouth working."Johnny, you're the best man that ever lived!""Oh, Cary!" he said, and he tried to laugh.She nodded decidedly."But I know. Robert told me what you'd been to him, and—he didn't spare himself."Stewart stared straight ahead of him."Poor Rob," he said. "Poor boy!"Cary moved off to the window and looked out, absent-mindedly, folding the edge of the curtain with her fingers."It's all like a terrible dream," she said slowly, "and I keep thinking I'll awake. It doesn't seem possible. I keep remembering the time he saved us in that awful storm, years ago at home, and—it—doesn't—seem—possible!""No, but it's all too true," said Stewart.Cary wheeled around, facing the room."And I am responsible. It was through his love for me!" she cried.Stewart shook his head."You tried to help him. I tried to help him—all the fellows did, but he just let himself go. When a man like that wants something, he sweeps everything out of his way and rushes on blindly.""Oh, but it was the love for me!" said Cary; then suddenly: "How you shielded him!""Do you think I did right? After all, perhaps, I wasn't meant for the Service. If I had done all my duty—""I think you did right," said Cary, looking down with grave eyes at her locked fingers, and she came back into the room and sat down, "Shall I tell you why I think so?""Yes.""No exposure could remedy the hurt he gave himself—to his own manhood and his own honor—" she broke off, and then went on hurriedly. "Oh, if he could only have realized what that meant—keeping his honor clean—" she broke off again, and Stewart looked away so that he might not see her face. She went on."The survey was made all right and so it was not the hurt to the Service it might have been, but only to himself; and your punishment in forcing him to resign was severe enough! His own remorse makes up the rest, and the two may bring him another chance." She paused.Stewart leaned his head on his hand, his elbow on the arm of the chair, and looked fixedly off into space."Perhaps you're right—I guess you are," he said, slowly. "I thought something like that at the time. It may be the saving of him. I didn't do an officer's whole duty, but I tried to be just. I tried to spare him and—and—" he hesitated, "those at home. I suppose another man might have told. I just held my tongue. It was an accident—my seeing. I was worried over the boy and couldn't keep away—" he was speaking disjointedly. "I loved the Service. God! how I loved it, and I couldn't bear that he might really harm it some time, so I made him get out. But I couldn't disgrace him; have him court-marshaled and cashiered, or—or pay the penalty—" he broke off, and Cary rose to go."He is paying the penalty," she said. "He pays it with every breath he draws.""Yes; and they tell me that twice he has nursed me and saved me, and I never knew!"Cary looked down thoughtfully at Stewart's thin hand resting on the arm of the chair, and Stewart looked at her and the silence grew and grew. If only he knew whether——She looked up quickly, as though divining his thoughts, and she flushed a little."We will keep the secret," she said, "you and I—won't we? And we will try and help him? Do you know, I believe he'll take his ambition and courage and—love," the flush mounted higher, "and remould his life?" She hesitated, "Even hopeless love—" and then she broke off, turning her face away. Stewart did not speak or move."Then it isn't Robert," he said to himself after she had gone, "Then—it—isn't—Robert!"
X.
Trevelyan's hurt shoulder healed rapidly, and two weeks later, Mackenzie discharged him, and he reported for duty again.
"The row's all over, I hear," he said later, to the little subaltern.
The little subaltern nodded ruefully.
"Yes, and holy smoke, didn't the chicken-hearted things run when they caught sight of us. We gave it to 'em hot, though! Guess they'll let off their funny business for a time, and—" the little subaltern grew suddenly sober, "Of course, you've heard about Pearson and Bennett and the men?"
Trevelyan nodded.
"Yes," he said, and the little subaltern never knew how gladly Trevelyan would lay down his life if he could have Pearson's or Bennett's chance—or the chance of the men.
Trevelyan went down the long piazza to his own quarters.
He had been in the hospital having his shoulder dressed and caring for Stewart, who was still ill; when they had brought Pearson and Bennett and the men back to the Station.
And through all the years of his life he would never have Pearson's or Bennett's chance, or the chance of Pearson's or Bennett's burial. He would die as other men died, who had failed in life; he would never be brought back from the front; he would never fall defending the Service and England.
* * * * *
A month later he filed his resignation papers, preparatory to having them endorsed and sent to the War Office.
The Colonel was in a fighting humor when the matter was brought up to him next day! The son of Trevelyan of Inkerman fame! And he sent for Trevelyan and talked to him of his duty to the Service, and the Queen, and the colonial policy of England, and a good deal more; but Trevelyan was firm. The Colonel grew apoplectic; still, Trevelyan was unmoved. Then, the Colonel, who had never lost a battle in his life, retreated ungraciously, trying to think of some reason why the order should not be endorsed and—failed. He had inquired into the shoulder affair, but that was explained by the little subaltern, who testified that he had seen and spoken to Trevelyan the moment before the shot. Trevelyan had been all eagerness to go. He had not paid any attention to the report, thinking some of the men were probably practicing at target. The Colonel had gone over that matter carefully. Then, in spite of the injury, Trevelyan had offered to undertake the survey—the Colonel could not get around that—even though he was not fit. Trevelyan might have been unpopular in the regiment, but he had always done his duty as an officer of the Service. And so the Colonel wrathfully saw the application go off on the next mail to England.
And then Trevelyan waited; waited as a man waits for the warrant that is to close his lease on life; and, as though to make the most of the time remaining, when he was not on duty, or with Stewart in the hospital, he was with the younger officers of the mess. They grew, then, to know a new phase in his character. He no longer closed the door of his quarters on them; it was Trevelyan's room to which they flocked; it was Trevelyan who joked them and teased them and smoked with them, and who played tennis with the garrison girls, and drank tea with the officers' wives; it was Trevelyan, with his great strength and courage, who shared their pastimes and helped to kill the long, inactive days that had settled back over the Station like a pall. Even the little subaltern ceased to dress up regardless in white linen and go and drink tea with Jessica Q, and became Trevelyan's shadow instead.
Weeks later the official acceptance of the resignation came. It was handed to him at mess. He glanced at it indifferently and laid it to one side. Later, he left. He did not join the crowd that evening. He went back to his own quarters and closed the door and drew to the covering at the window, and he sat down in the dark and fought it out alone.
Two hours after he went over to the hospital to make his nightly inquiry for Stewart.
Stewart had had a bad day, they told him. It was a case for time.
He did not go in to see Stewart that night.
He wished that he could have waited and taken Stewart home, he thought, as he retraced his steps to his dark bungalow, but it might be months before Stewart could bear the journey, and Stewart would not hear of his waiting. Perhaps, it was because Stewart was not strong enough to bear the sight of Trevelyan's face, with its imprint of despair; it might have been he fancied something of the despair would lift when Trevelyan was once again in Scotland. At any rate, he had ordered Trevelyan home and Trevelyan had planned to leave—alone.
The next day he dismantled his quarters and made his preparations. He packed his uniforms and his helmets and his sword, and sent them home—to Scotland, to Mactier's care.
In the morning he put on civilian's clothes and left the Station.
* * * * *
The stretch of distant land grew clearer with each throb of the ship engine's heart.
The long voyage was over and Trevelyan was coming back to England.
And he had betrayed his allegiance to England because he had loved! * * *
He leaned over the ship's rail and looked idly at the whirling foam, that beat an angry protest at its birth against the ship's great side, and then grew less and lost itself in the deep waters of the Channel.
Had he loved Cary? he questioned. Had he not mistaken the baser passion for the diviner love that alone is built on honor?
She had told him to mould himself into the divine and he had broken the clay instead.
His eyes rested somberly on the long green line of land. All his honor and allegiance, with which he had broken faith, came back to him and filled him with unspeakable emotion.
He would stoop and he would gather up the broken pieces and remould them for the service of England.
End of Book Two.
BOOK THREE
THEPOTTER'S TOUCH
BOOK THREE
THE POTTER'S TOUCH
I.
The long months had swelled into two years and more before Trevelyan came home—to England and to Cary.
Cary and the Captain had spent one winter in Palestine and on the Nile, and the summers in travel. When the Captain mildly suggested Italy or a return to America on the dawning of the second winter, Cary shook her head and begged for London and the old lodgings. Cary, for some reason never spoke of going home now. And so the Captain took her back to London, and Cary seemed to enjoy the great familiar city, better than all the sights and novelties of Egypt and the Holy Land.
The weekly gift of violets or of roses began again with her return to England. Now and then, letters came from John, but they were not frequent, and were, to Cary's critical judgment, unsatisfactory. Of course, she was glad to hear of the life of the Station, and what the men and officers did to pass the off-duty time; and how the army women spent the days in India, and how they all kept cool—or tried to. It was kind of John, too, to think to tell her all the details, and the account of their hunting trip and the "man-eater" Trevelyan had killed,—Cary wondered if the skin was for her—and what their quarters looked like, but somehow Cary wanted more. She wasn't quite sure what she did want; perhaps she told herself it was some more definite mention of Trevelyan. Trevelyan never wrote.
She thought of Trevelyan often, and in the silences of the night she would sometimes recall the blackness and the thunder of that Scottish storm, and the terror of the hour without its charm would come back to her and she would cower among her white pillows and shut, very fast, her eyes.
In the fall the Camerons had asked her to a house party but for some reason she herself could not define, she sent regrets. The Camerons' place was so near his home! She wondered if it were because he would not be there, or if she would be afraid when she saw his home again. When Trevelyan came back—
But she was lonelier in the late afternoon when the Captain had gone to walk, than at any part of the day, and she would sit with idle hands folded in her lap and look at the silent little tea-kettle on the tea-table; or rise and watch the sunset, quite alone. She wasn't ever afraid then, she was only unutterably lonely! Perhaps when Trevelyan came back—
And then Trevelyan did come back. She heard it from the Captain one afternoon, and it was then the Captain told her, gently, of the delayed accounts of Stewart's and Trevelyan's part in the native struggle. There were no details regarding them; it was only known certainly, that both Stewart and Trevelyan had been hurt; that Stewart was still ill at the Station, and that Trevelyan had sent in a resignation. His return was expected. They would have to wait.
They waited; and Cary grew older in the waiting.
Little by little details were added to the story, and she would go around to the Stewarts' and talk it over with John's mother and John's sister, and women-like they would try to fit the ill-formed pieces together.
Then she would go back slowly to the lodgings.
She had waited so long for Trevelyan to come home, and she had thought to welcome him in promotion; she had dreamed that some day Trevelyan would do something great for the Service and for England; she had believed it, and now—Trevelyan was coming home—resigned; and all her dreams and all her faith had not been worth while.
II.
Trevelyan had landed. The Captain saw it in the morning paper and read the item out to Cary. The ship had gotten in a day before it had been looked for.
Cary pushed back her untasted cup of coffee, and she remained in doors all day, unconsciously listening for his footfall on the stairs, and when night came without bringing him, she laughed at herself for fancying that he would come direct to her.
It was three days before he did come and she met him on the stairs. She was about to do some delayed shopping, and as she was going down, she met him coming up. She turned and they went back to the quiet little sitting room together, and she ran over to the window impetuously and flung back the curtains.
"Come here," she said, gaily, "I can scarcely believe it is you, yourself! Come here, and let me see your Indian tan!"
He smiled a little, obeying her, but he did not meet her eyes.
Couldhe ever tell her? he wondered.
"Why you haven't got half the tan I expected! You're not chocolate at all!" she said like a grieved child.
He forgot the haunting shadow for a moment and he laughed genuinely.
"I'm sorry I don't please you."
"You don't please me at all," Cary pouted. "You're not chocolate, and you haven't returned a captain, and you're not in uniform with a medal on your breast, and what is worse than everything, you've grown chicken-hearted and turned your back on the Service and run away."
He winced.
"And you're as solemn as a funeral, and you haven't told me you're glad to see me, and—you don't please me at all!"
"That's a nice greeting for a chap!"
"Well—you deserve it!" Cary retorted; then she brightened up, "And you really got hurt? Did it come just 'within a shade of a vital spot,' like it always does in the story books?"
"I got a scratch."
"Good boy! How did it happen? You must sit down and tell me all about it. Was it one of those horrid natives?"
Trevelyan sat down near the window in the deep shadow of the curtains. He put his hand to his head and pressed it there tightly for a moment.
"No," he said, "It wasn't one of the natives. It was my own revolver."
"What?"
Trevelyan faltered.
"Must you hear the story to-day? Won't you wait? It's so long since I've seen you—"
If this brief hour could only be his, unspoiled, to remember!
"Don't be aggravating," said Cary, "I'm interested, and I want to hear." She could not have told why a dull weight should suddenly have laid itself upon her.
Trevelyan sat silent.
"First," he said presently, playing with the tassel of the curtain cord, "first, let me tell you about John."
She flushed. She had forgotten John in the dread that lay upon her.
"Yes, please tell me about John. Is he coming home soon?"
"When he is able to bear the journey—and I believe a little before. He is sick for a sight of England." Trevelyan let the last words fall slowly. He had thought to add "of you."
After a moment he went on.
"I had a long talk with Mackenzie—the surgeon, you know—before I left. He says the wound hurt something in the back and went clear through to the lung. He'll have to get out of the Service."
Cary rose quickly. She went over to the piano and stood there pressing her hands against the top and hiding her face on them.
"It's too cruel," she moaned, "both you fellows—out of the Service!It's too cruel!"
Trevelyan knit and unknit his fingers, and was silent.
"He'll be all right—in time," he said slowly, with a dim idea of giving her comfort, "but he just won't be physically strong enough again for the army."
"And you've resigned!"
Trevelyan still sat in the shadows cast by the curtains. He was massing all his courage and his strength against his love.
"Cary!" She raised her head from her arms, and she shivered at the tone of his voice, without knowing why. "Cary, if you'll come over here—I'll tell you why—" he broke off.
She obeyed him mechanically.
"Sit down."
She did as he bade her.
"Shall I light the lamp?" she faltered. "The days are short and—and it's dark—"
"No, not yet. Sit here where I can see your face by the fire. There! Like that!"
And then he began on the cause and the details of the native trouble. She moved restlessly. She did not understand the technicalities very well, and the odd dread and oppression would not lift. She was conscious that Trevelyan's voice filled the room, but she scarcely heeded his words. And then he told her of Stewart and something of what Stewart had tried to do for him, and grew eloquent over it, and she forgot herself and the dread in listening to him. Even on the day of the storm in Scotland, when he had told her the stories of his childhood, he had not been as eloquent as this. Then he halted. After a while he resumed. He did not pause again, but went on rapidly with the old resoluteness born afresh, now that he had once begun. He continued steadily, mercilessly, leading up to the heart of it as he would have aimed at and hit the bull's eye at target practice with an unerring hand.
"And the Colonel ordered me to make the survey. It meant danger and probable death, and—I was afraid. I shot myself to prevent going. I lied about it. I said the revolver had gone off. He sent John."
He leaned forward, grim with the grimness of despair, and the moisture came out on his face and his throbbing throat, but she did not see his face, she only heard the words that fell heavily on the silence.
She rose to her feet; he could see her, in the beauty of her height, silhouetted against the bright firelight. Her breast was rising and falling quickly with emotion.
"I don't believe it," she cried. "There is nothing that will make me believe it! Why, you're not afraid of anything! You to turn coward!"
She paused, waiting for his denial, and remained standing.
He rose too; came from out of the shadows and sat down in the Captain's big chair by the fire, where she could see and read his face.
"I was afraid," he repeated.
It was as if he knew no other word.
She went over to him and dropped down by the chair, and looked up at him.
"Tell me that it isn't true," she said. "If you tell me that it isn't true, I'll believe you against the world."
"It is true," he said.
The girl pressed the palms of her hands against her cheeks and drew them slowly down, away from her face.
Suddenly she rose to her feet and leant over, looking steadily into his face.
The shadowy spaces at the ends of the room grew and came to meet each other.
She looked down into his face searchingly and in silence, and he met her look as a brave man meets death—squarely. Her hand dropped from his shoulder and fell at her side lifelessly. She shrank away.
"Good God," she whispered.
She went over into the shadows, to the window and stood looking out, motionless. It seemed to her that she could never look at him again.
"John saw me," said Trevelyan, over by the fire, "and he swore me to keep quiet about it—except to you; he left that to me to decide—he made me swear to resign. I wasn't fit to serve England."
He spoke without emotion and briefly, stating facts.
After awhile he went over to her in an uncertain manner. She shrank closer to the window.
"Don't come near me," she said in a low voice.
He went back and sat down by the fire. The minutes passed.
"If you would say something to me,—" he began, looking toward her.
She came out of the shadows into the firelight.
"Thereisnothing to say," she said, and her face looked then like the face on the hospital wall.
"I know it," he answered.
She covered her face with her hands, and turned quickly and fell down by a chair, burying her face in its cushions, and sobbing as though to break her heart.
Trevelyan did not move to go to her; he did not even look at her as she was crying there over his lost honor. Honor was so much to her. He had always known it. Perhaps it was for that he had first loved her.
After awhile she moved and leaned one elbow on the seat of her chair, her cheek in her hand. She turned her face, looking into his.
"I—I didn't mean to be cruel," she said, and her voice caught in sobs as she spoke. "I was—selfish. I—was only thinking of—myself. Of—of how I'd trusted you, and—and that! But oh, I'm—so sorry for—you. I—" she broke off, impatiently brushing the tears away with her hand.
Trevelyan stared into the fire.
"Don't talk that way," he said slowly, "I can bear anything but—that!"
"What—what made you—afraid?"
He left the big chair by the fire and came over to where she was sitting on the floor, and looked down at her.
"I was afraid I should never see you again," he said. "I—" and he put out his hand as though to touch her hair, "I wish—well I wish, I had known there was something besides you in the world!"
She said nothing.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked after awhile.
"I don't know," he said slowly, "I—don't—know!"
He turned abruptly and picked up his coat and hat. He did not offer to shake hands in parting. Cary had used to help him on with his coat and shake hands, but Cary did not move to-night. He walked over to the door, turning to look back at her.
"Good night," he said, in a matter of fact way, "Good-bye."
Cary sat motionless and she looked up at him dumbly.
"Good-bye," he repeated.
"Good-bye," she said slowly.
Trevelyan took the night train home—to Scotland and to old Mactier. Perhaps up there, he would learn "what he was going to do now."
Cary sat motionless, in the shadows, by the big chair. After awhile she crept over to the dead fire and stared at the white ashes. It seemed to her that all her faith was dead.
III.
After Trevelyan had come and gone, each day seemed to Cary like the one before; and they all stretched out, crushed and dead and lifeless, as a string of pearls from which the luster has disappeared.
After awhile there were rumors that Stewart was coming home; that Stewart was making a desperate effort to come home—to England. London was agog—Stewart's part of London. Everyone by this time had gotten a pretty clear idea of affairs, and because Stewart had come up to what they had expected of him, and had faced danger and death like the soldier he was, and had generally conducted himself like a gentleman,—London was pleased. London, like a woman, derived satisfaction in saying, "I always knew it. I told you so."
Little by little the excitement penetrated Cary's inertia. After all, it was not quite fair that because one man had broken her faith and his honor, she should judge all men by him. John had not failed her. Perhaps John would pull things straight again for her, and make her see life as she ought.
The warm days of early spring came—the English spring and the sunshine, and there was no need any longer for a fire on the hearth, and every day brought the ship nearer, and every fair breeze helped to bring him into port quicker—John, coming back, sick and wounded for life, from battle.
After all, she had forgotten that part of it—his part; and his burden that was heavier than her own, and Trevelyan's burden, that was heavier than all.
After awhile she brought a pity, wholly womanly and half divine, out of the ashes that had seemed so dead, and on the awful truth of these men's lives, broken by the failure of one, she built the mercy that is stronger than justice, and the faith that is stronger than doubt.
Something, though, remained in the ashes, dead, never to be rekindled, and woman-like she used to cry a little over the dead part of it; not because she could not relight it, but because it was so dead.
She grew into a woman in those weeks lapsing between Trevelyan's call and Stewart's return—gradually, as clay is moulded in the hands of a potter, who cuts it on his wheel, to give to it the finer tracings and the smoothness of completion.
And every day and every fair breeze brought Stewart nearer, and Cary turned from the ashes to the sunsets again. Fires would go out, even with careful tending, but the sunsets were God's, Cary told herself, and, therefore, eternal.
IV.
Malcolm Stewart went down to Southampton to meet the ship and bring John back to London.
"No excitement," the doctor had said, and so he had gone alone.
Now that young Stewart had really accomplished the task of getting back to England, his false strength deserted him and he became weaker than before. The two men, the sturdy father and the wasted son, made the journey to town, John being carried to and from the railway carriages.
For a moment, when he reached London, and the carriage was turning into Grosvenor Square, he rallied a little and insisted on getting out of the carriage himself, and walking up the steps, leaning heavily on his father's arm.
"We won't frighten the Little Madre," he had said.
The tall, womanly figure of the Little Madre. who had been standing by the window for the last hour, appeared at the door, silently holding out her arms.
After awhile they got him up to his own room and to bed, and all day the Little Madre sat by him, tending to his few wants. Once he fell asleep, and when he awoke the room was full of flowers.
"What is it?" he asked his mother feebly, "Where did they come from?"
"From friends," she said, rising and moving from one great bunch to another. "The white and pink roses are from Cousin Kenneth's wife," and so she went on. "The heather and the bracken came without a name. I think they must be from Rob—don't you?"
She paused, turning to him questioningly. Stewart swallowed.
"Probably," he said, in a low voice.
"The Camerons sent the lilies, and those red roses are from the old Major of the Department—you should read the card," she smiled proudly, coming back to his bed.
He smiled at her eagerness, and laid the card down.
"That's pretty nice, isn't it?" he asked.
And then he looked up at her.
"But the violets?" he asked slowly. "Who left the violets?"
"The violets are from Cary," she replied, meeting his look.
A slow flush mounted over his pale face.
"Please bring them here."
She did so, holding them close to his face that he might smell of them before she put the little vase on the table by him. He took them out of the water, feebly, and laid them on the bed.
"Everyone is awfully kind," he said, "and I don't deserve the fuss. Have—many inquired—to-day?"
"All my visiting list," she replied, laughingly, "and a good many more besides. Why the officers—" she paused, shaking her head.
"Has—Cary called?" he asked, looking hard at the foot board of the bed.
"Yes, and left the flowers herself. You are to see her—" she broke off, anxiously watching the haggard face that he turned quickly to her own.
"When?"
"In three or four days—if you are stronger. She shall be the first."
His mother leaned over him, stroking his hair from his forehead. He met her eyes gravely.
The late sunlight sifted through the drawn curtains and touched the flowers; their exquisite odor crept through the stillness of the room as the sweet memory of an old song steals through the silent chambers of the heart.
"I love her," he said simply. "I have loved her always," he said, still looking into her eyes.
She smiled.
"I have known it always," she answered.
But the four days lengthened into four weeks before he saw Cary. That night the half healed wound reopened, and he had a sinking spell.
The next morning before the news had had time to become generally known, Trevelyan mysteriously appeared at the house on Grosvenor Square, and went straight to Stewart's room.
"You go and lie down," he said briefly to his aunt, who had been up all night, "I guess I ought to know how to take care of him. I did it once before in India. I won't leave you until I've pulled him through."
And then Trevelyan and Death fought it out again, and Trevelyan beat back the Shadowy Presence in the great still London house, as he had done weeks before in the government hospital in India. He hardly left the sick room, and he seemed scarcely ever to sleep. He would sit for hours at a time, his finger on Stewart's pulse; quieting his ravings and forcing back the fever by the might of his own will.
Except in the dim sick room where Stewart lived again in delirium the night of the perilous ride, over the great Grosvenor Square house rested the hush of grave sickness and impending death. The servant stationed at the door, guarded against the possible ringing of the muffled bell, and answered inquiries, and received the cards left, and the offerings of flowers. None ever reached Stewart's darkened room except the small bunch of violets that came daily, and which his mother would bring up and place on the table by his bed, hoping in woman-fashion that the perfume might attract and hold his wandering faculties, or arouse him from the stupor into which he would fall from time to time; but it never did. If she had ever dreamed of the exquisite torture the flowers and their scent were to Trevelyan, she would have placed them with the others down stairs, but Trevelyan never told, and she never knew the moments in which the perfume seemed to drive him mad.
Once she suggested getting a professional nurse to relieve him, but catching sight of Trevelyan's face she had stopped short.
"There! Forgive me," she said. "It is not that I don't trust you, or am ungrateful or believe that anyone else could do so well, but I am afraid for you."
"I'm all right," Trevelyan had answered shortly.
"You are unselfish; you are only thinking of us and of John. You are always thinking and doing for John."
"Don't!" he interrupted, and through the dimness of the room she could see that his face quivered, and she wondered.
"I could not get along without you," she went on. "None of us could, and it has been you who have pulled him through so far."
She looked toward the long, motionless figure on the bed.
"I shall pull him through to-night and to-morrow, and to-morrow again, and next week—until he is out of danger," said Trevleyan.
That was the day the two doctors had given Stewart up.
The crisis came and passed, and Stewart lived.
When the thralldom and the stupor of the fever had partly lifted, and before Stewart came to himself, Trevelyan left and went back to Scotland and to old Mactier, nor could anyone persuade him to remain.
Days later, when Stewart was sitting up, he saw Cary for the first time.
"There is some one waiting outside whom you will be glad to see," his mother had said.
"It is Cary? You are going to let me see Cary?" he cried.
"If you will be good and not talk," she answered, leaving the door ajar.
Stewart turned his face to the door, pressing his long, thin fingers resting on his knee, close together.
She came in carrying a bunch of violets, and stood by his chair, looking down at him. He looked up at her, and it seemed to him that she was beautiful, and her voice the sweetest he had ever heard.
"I have waited and wanted so to give you these myself," she said, "and you have frightened us all so."
She spoke with the simplicity of a little girl, but there was a quality in her voice that Stewart had not heard before, and he knew that Cary had become a woman.
He clung to her hand in parting with that pathetic bodily weakness that makes a man, in illness, like a child.
"Don't go yet," he pleaded, "You've been here such a little while. Oh,pleasedon't go!"
She patted his hand.
"I will come again," she said, and on her way to the door, she kept looking back at him and smiling. He sat motionless until her light footstep was lost in the distance, and all day he sat quiet, scarcely speaking, dreaming of her.
The next day he waited, expecting her, but she did not come; nor the next.
"What's become of Cary?" he asked on the third day of his mother. "Why don't she come any more?"
"I suppose she thinks you're out of danger now, and she may have other things to do."
"If that isn't just the way of women! Coming all the time when a chap don't know anything or anybody, and then just when he needs cheering—" he broke off, pulling viciously at the shawl over his feet.
His mother smiled, knowing better "the way of women."
But two days later, when Cary called again, she spoke to her of his loneliness.
"He gets tired of the home faces," she said, "and he isn't strong enough yet to see the men or strangers. Perhaps if you could read aloud to him now and then——"
"Why, of course I could," said Cary, and after that she came oftener. They would carry Stewart down to his mother's cheerful little sitting room, and there one or more of the family would gather and Cary would talk or read aloud. At such times Stewart would lean back in his chair among his pillows and remain silent, content to look at her and to listen to her voice. One day they were left alone together. He remained quiet, his eyes fixed on her. Presently she finished the chapter and turned the page.
"I think that was a pretty strong scene, don't you?" she asked, pausing for a moment before she went on, and peering at him gravely over the top of the book.
"Yes—it was," he answered absently.
"You weren't listening to a word of it," she exclaimed reproachfully.
He laughed.
"To tell you the truth—no. Put the wretched old thing down and talk to me."
She laid the book down as he had bidden, but she played nervously with the leaves.
"What shall I talk about?"
"Oh, anything—yourself."
"Upon my word, but you're polite. There isn't an earthly thing to tell about myself," she added, "And I don't know any topic that would interest you. There's that House of Commons speech, of course, but——"
"Then I'll talk to you."
"Oh, youmustn't!" She looked up startled, "Sir Archibald said you were not to exert yourself."
"Confound the old codger, anyway! Does he expect to keep me tongue-tied the rest of my life?"
Cary laughed.
"You're cross to-day," she said. "You're getting better. It's a sure sign."
Stewart leaned forward suddenly; then he leaned back and traced an outline of a sword on the leather arm of the chair.
"Did you know," he asked her slowly, "that as far as the Service is concerned, I'm done for—that I'll never be well enough for it again; that I've been injured beyond hope for the Service; that I've had to resign?"
"Yes," said Cary gently, looking hard at the book in her lap.
"Thirty and—done for," he said bitterly, "All the Woolwich years to count for nothing; all the study; all the ambition, all the—hope, to count for nothing!" His finger paused in tracing the outline of the sword.
"Oh, you mustn't say that," cried Cary, "you must remember what you've done already—more than many older officers do in their whole lives. And then—"
He interrupted her.
"That sounds well," he said. "But life isn't worth much to a man when he's laid on the shelf just when he's beginning to live— But the wasted years and the inactive life ahead!" He went on rapidly, beating the fist of one hand against the palm of the other. "Oh, think what inactivity will mean after the life I've been trained to, and worked for, and loved!"
She sat silent, her heart throbbing with a great pity.
"To have to think of myself—to look out for draughts like a sickly, nervous old man!" Something rose in Stewart's throat, and he coughed. "Can't ever command the men again! Can't lead them to battle, or ever feel the soft earth under me, or see the stars and the night through the flap of my tent! To have to give up trying to be something, or do something—at thirty!"
He stopped short.
The book fell from Cary's lap to the floor, and she stooped to pick it up with swimming eyes. He caught sight of her face and he leaned forward; all the anger and all the resentment gone from his voice—melted by her tears.
"Bah!" he said, "That's just about the fate I'm fit for if I haven't got any more grit than that! Of course I didn't mean it, and you must try and forget it. Of course the Service is out of the question, but Iwillmake something of my life! And I'm awfully glad, too, for what I've had of it, and—been allowed to do. I'm glad for the Woolwich years and—and the training—and—all that! Of course it hasn't been lost. And I'm glad I've done something for the Service—even in a little way, and saved—" he caught himself up suddenly.
Cary rose, her tears dried by the burning fever in her eyes. She finished the sentence.
"Saved Robert from exposure!"
He looked up quickly.
"I—I don't understand you."
"Oh, yes, you do too," said Cary, breathing hard. "You think I don't know all about it! I do, though!"
"How?"
"Robert told me himself."
Stewart drew a deep breath and looked away. There was a long silence in the room. After awhile she went up to the big leather chair and laid one hand on the back of it and bent her head, looking down at him.
"Johnny?"
He looked up, his firm mouth working.
"Johnny, you're the best man that ever lived!"
"Oh, Cary!" he said, and he tried to laugh.
She nodded decidedly.
"But I know. Robert told me what you'd been to him, and—he didn't spare himself."
Stewart stared straight ahead of him.
"Poor Rob," he said. "Poor boy!"
Cary moved off to the window and looked out, absent-mindedly, folding the edge of the curtain with her fingers.
"It's all like a terrible dream," she said slowly, "and I keep thinking I'll awake. It doesn't seem possible. I keep remembering the time he saved us in that awful storm, years ago at home, and—it—doesn't—seem—possible!"
"No, but it's all too true," said Stewart.
Cary wheeled around, facing the room.
"And I am responsible. It was through his love for me!" she cried.
Stewart shook his head.
"You tried to help him. I tried to help him—all the fellows did, but he just let himself go. When a man like that wants something, he sweeps everything out of his way and rushes on blindly."
"Oh, but it was the love for me!" said Cary; then suddenly: "How you shielded him!"
"Do you think I did right? After all, perhaps, I wasn't meant for the Service. If I had done all my duty—"
"I think you did right," said Cary, looking down with grave eyes at her locked fingers, and she came back into the room and sat down, "Shall I tell you why I think so?"
"Yes."
"No exposure could remedy the hurt he gave himself—to his own manhood and his own honor—" she broke off, and then went on hurriedly. "Oh, if he could only have realized what that meant—keeping his honor clean—" she broke off again, and Stewart looked away so that he might not see her face. She went on.
"The survey was made all right and so it was not the hurt to the Service it might have been, but only to himself; and your punishment in forcing him to resign was severe enough! His own remorse makes up the rest, and the two may bring him another chance." She paused.
Stewart leaned his head on his hand, his elbow on the arm of the chair, and looked fixedly off into space.
"Perhaps you're right—I guess you are," he said, slowly. "I thought something like that at the time. It may be the saving of him. I didn't do an officer's whole duty, but I tried to be just. I tried to spare him and—and—" he hesitated, "those at home. I suppose another man might have told. I just held my tongue. It was an accident—my seeing. I was worried over the boy and couldn't keep away—" he was speaking disjointedly. "I loved the Service. God! how I loved it, and I couldn't bear that he might really harm it some time, so I made him get out. But I couldn't disgrace him; have him court-marshaled and cashiered, or—or pay the penalty—" he broke off, and Cary rose to go.
"He is paying the penalty," she said. "He pays it with every breath he draws."
"Yes; and they tell me that twice he has nursed me and saved me, and I never knew!"
Cary looked down thoughtfully at Stewart's thin hand resting on the arm of the chair, and Stewart looked at her and the silence grew and grew. If only he knew whether——
She looked up quickly, as though divining his thoughts, and she flushed a little.
"We will keep the secret," she said, "you and I—won't we? And we will try and help him? Do you know, I believe he'll take his ambition and courage and—love," the flush mounted higher, "and remould his life?" She hesitated, "Even hopeless love—" and then she broke off, turning her face away. Stewart did not speak or move.
"Then it isn't Robert," he said to himself after she had gone, "Then—it—isn't—Robert!"