V.Weeks later, when Stewart was able, he went around to see Cary."It's a dreadful pull—up those stairs," said Cary, rolling forward a chair and looking anxiously at Stewart as he stood wan and breathless, but smiling, in the doorway."It never used to be," he panted, sitting down.His eyes wandered about the room."Jove, but it's good to get back here! And you haven't changed things a bit—even the Psyche in her old place! And the little tea kettle—Jove!"He leaned back restfully.She laughed and watched him in silence."I'll miss it all like the dickens!"She looked up quickly from the flowers she was just beginning to arrange."You are not going away, are you?" she asked.He nodded and sighed."Home—to Scotland. The lease on the place has run out, and they think country air will brace me up a bit—so we're going. It'll seem queer to get back there after all these years.""You—you're going to give up the Grosvenor Square house?""Yes. I suppose, though, we'll come back every year for the season and take a suite at the Langham or the Buckingham Gate. Father has an idea that he'll put me through a course of politics up there, when we're alone, and there's nothing going on." Stewart smiled mirthlessly."You are thinking of going into politics, when you get strong?" asked Cary for something to say. A sudden unutterable homesickness had swept over her."I'm not sure—it isn't unlikely though. I suppose that's as good a way to serve the country as half a man can—perhaps a little better—to try and help keep one detail of the government's work clean! Father has set his heart on the Diplomatic service for me.""I should think you'd like that," said Cary. Talking to-day for some reason was an effort."I'm not sure. What are you and the Captain going to do with yourselves?"Cary leaned against the back of a chair, tearing a stray rose leaf to pieces. She looked down at it as she spoke."Papa wants another tramp through the Alps. I'm not in the mood for tramping, but he's been so good I can't say a word. When we've climbed Mont Blanc again and come down, I think I'll get Daddy to take me home. I think I'm a little mite homesick."She turned quickly and buried her face in the roses. An odd light sprang to Stewart's eyes."Haven't you been happy in England?" he asked.Cary lifted her head, her face dyed with the deep red of the roses."Happy! There's no place like England—except America," she said. "I love every stone in England—in the United Kingdom! Months ago Daddy and I spent a July in Hertfordshire. I can see it all now; the glorious green of everything; the undulating country and the woods and the scattered old cottages, with the village in the distance and the church spire showing, and the little river and the cornfields and the poppies!" She breathed quicker. "There is only one thing sweeter I know—the old fort at home and the long beach and the sea."She stopped, and the red of the roses faded. She went on slowly."Yes, I guess I'm a little bit homesick, for the beach and the sea.""Do you remember when we were crossing I asked you to let me take you to my home in Scotland when the homesickness came?" asked Stewart. "You might come to us when the Captain is re-climbing Mont Blanc."He paused, waiting for an answer, but Cary was silent."Wouldn't you come?"She threw the last bit of the torn leaf away and came toward him and stopped, her hands on the back of a chair, a smile creeping into her eyes."I might—if I was asked," she said demurely.He laughed like a boy."Mother'll see to that.""She'll have to," said Cary, tossing her head."But you'd still be homesick?"She wrinkled up her forehead."Goodness, even Scotland isn't America," she answered. "Why, I suppose I would—some!"Stewart closed the carriage door decidedly. Then he leaned back and stared into the mirror opposite, addressing the reflection there. The odd light had come back to his eyes."It's what I've been waiting for," he said, speaking aloud and slowly; "it's what I've been waiting for all these years. She's homesick, and she shall come home—to me."VI.To Trevelyan, up in Scotland, each day evolved itself into an eternity. There were the lonely breakfasts in the mornings; the lonely walks about the grounds, or out on the steep, bare crags; the lonely lunches; the lonely afternoons spent in wandering around the silent house; the lonelier evenings in which the unread book would drop from his hand to the floor, and he would stare absently into the shadows; the lonely wakeful nights—it was always loneliness.Old Mactier would often pause in his morning work and look after the solitary figure and ponder and shake his head before he went back to his duties. Trevelyan sometimes used to stop by him and talk to him a little before he resumed his walk. Once he carried Mactier off to the moorlands for a week's shooting and Mactier was actually conscious that Trevelyan seemed happier with his gun under his arm again than he had been since the day of his mysterious return.It was Trevelyan, not Mactier, who led the hunt in those days, and the old man would press after him, sometimes stumbling with the fatigue he was too proud to acknowledge, and glorying in the prowess of the great strong figure ahead, that he had carried as a child and in whose hands he had placed the first firearms—almost before the child was strong enough to hold the weapon or could pull the trigger by himself.If Trevelyan exhausted the old retainer, he tired himself too, and at night he would drop, almost too weary to take off his hunting boots, and go to sleep, and sleep heavily, dreamlessly, as he had not done for weeks.It was a relief, that, to get away from the haunting shadow in his dreams; and he blessed passionately the fatigue that brought even for so brief a time, forgetfulness.At the end of the week he and Mactier went home, and the inactivity and the loneliness and the sleeplessness grew greater than before.There was no face of his own kind to greet him here, in Scotland; the Camerons were his nearest neighbors, and the Camerons were away—Tom in Aberdeen. There was no one to help him, even if they could, to beat back the blind despair that threatened him with mental and with moral death.One day he ordered out the hounds and rode across country until the fields and trees and fences became blurred together by the touch of twilight. He returned mud stained and mortally weary and stalked into the dining room and over to the sideboard, where he locked his table wines. He took out a decanter and hunted around for a glass, and carried both into the library, and sat down. Then he poured some of the wine and swallowed it at a mouthful. He filled the glass again and drank the liquor leisurely, lounging back in his chair with a sigh of content. After all, he declared, there was nothing like a bracer when a chap was fagged out.By and by, he slipped down a little in his chair and stretched his legs, still encased in their mud-stained boots, straight out in front of him and went to sleep. When he awoke it was quite dark, and he sat still, staring through the uncurtained window into the night, and conscious of a delicious languor. Then as his faculties became more acute and the old spectre returned to haunt him, he instinctively stretched forth his hand in the blackness and fumbled for the decanter and the glass. He drunk deeply once, twice, three times—and when he raised the glass for the fourth time his hand shook and there was an odd rushing sound in his head.Suddenly he sat forward in his chair, pushed the glass and decanter from him roughly and flung out his arms across the table. The odd rushing sound subsided, and he became aware that the wine was dripping from the table to the floor, where he had overturned the decanter.He did not refill it, and the sideboard remained unlocked—and empty.So the days passed. He would climb up into the eyrie, as he had done as a child and listen to the beating sea below. Once the sea had sung to him of undiscovered lands, whose shores it touched, bearing the message back to him; it had sung of wealth and fame gained by the sword—it was by the sword always—and it had beaten and beaten, and sung of all that he would one day like to be; and of what some day he would be and achieve. Once it had sung of love—of its mystery and the essence of its life—Now—He would crawl to the edge of the crag and peer over into the white foam, holding on to the edge until the old boyish dizziness came back; but unlike in the old days, there was never a woman's face in the foam now. What right had he to look for a woman's face in the foam![image]"What right had he to look for a woman's face in the foam?"And the song of the sea was the song of death and dishonor. He might climb the crag to-day, and to-morrow, and every to-morrow of his life, and the song would not change. The sea was a vast organ; he could not change its tunes back to the old ones; he could not control it, and it went on, rolling out its fierce, deep music of dishonor.And then he would leave the sea and the crags and go back into the empty house. The house was only a shade less bad; with its deserted rooms and its long gallery of dead and gone Campbells and Trevelyans.He had wandered into the gallery once or twice. The faces on the canvases, grown indistinct with the years, seemed to look back at him without recognition that he was of their race and line. What claim had they on him or he on them? The men had been brave and the women fair—so the history and traditions of the house had said, even if the stiff painted figures and the severe painted faces often said otherwise—the men had always been in the front wherever they were needed for the defense of Scotland and her rights, and later they had defended England too. If they had not fought for her with the sword, they had with tongue or pen—if they had not been soldiers, they had been powers in the government or in the pulpit. Even the solemn-faced preacher near the big window at the furthest end of the gallery, when eloquence had failed, had left the old kirk to strike a blow for King Charlie. The women, too, had been brave—brave in the sacrifice of beauty and wealth for the upholding of Scottish rights, and the renouncing of husbands and lovers and sons for Scotland.At the other side of the gallery hung his father's race—the Trevelyans; and opposite the solemn-faced preacher, near to the window where the sun struck it in the morning, was the picture of his mother. It had been taken of her in the first years of her marriage, soon after he had been born. People had said that, as a child, he had held his head proudly, like hers.The grave, smiling eyes seemed to follow him as he turned hastily from the portrait. She had gloried in the traditions of her race; she had been proud—justly—of her line. He thanked God she was dead—that he might remember her as the portrait had painted her to be—on the flood tide of her love and her beauty and her strength.There was the picture of his father, in his full regimentals. He had been years older than his wife, but how they had loved each other; how proud they had been of each other's race, and how proud they had been of him. He was glad that his father was traveling in the Far East and had not seen him or demanded explanations since his return. He would have been obliged to meet the questionings with silence. It was better so.Between the two portraits hung one of himself as a child. How his father and mother had watched the growing of the portrait under the master's brush, waiting for its completion, that it might be hung in the gallery. It had been painted the year his mother had died—a year before he went to America. The artist had taken something of the grace and alertness of the great hound that had rested at the boy's feet and put it into the supple limbs of the boy himself. He had painted into the boy's eyes the reflection of the gray stormy sea, and had lent them something of the gray sea's strength.And he had been like that as a child, with all the promise of a ripe manhood! And now that he had grown to be a man——There was a long stretch of empty wall space next to the portrait of his father, and his father had once laughingly told him that his portrait should hang there, painted in uniform, when he had left Woolwich and won his spurs and returned after seeing service.And he had returned from service without the uniform!He had used to come and dream here after the Woolwich years, whenever he could get off from duty or was not with Cary. He had come here often in that winter when Cary was away in France. And he had planned his portrait hanging so, in uniform, with hers near his—even as his mother's was near his father's. And sometimes when the sun had gone and the darkness had crept in, the shadows had taken other forms—the forms of children—who would troop up and take their places on the empty spaces waiting for them on the wall.He had dreamed of her—-of Cary—as a strong passionate nature dreams of its best beloved. He had fancied her in a hundred different guises—at the head of his table, moving around the house, as its mistress, talking to old Mactier and his tenantry, as the master's wife; he had dreamed of her, after he and she had lived together alone for a period of ineffable bliss, as the mother of his children; strong sons and fair daughters, that would reflect her sweetness and his strength—the completion of their love. He had dreamed of the time when the house would ring with their voices, and then of the days when the house had lapsed into silence again, when learning love's mystery they had gone to homes of their own; when he and she would live on in a love that time could not change, nor age wither; how later she would lay him in the tomb of his ancestors, and later still they would put her close beside him and his people. He had never dreamed of her dying first, or of his life without her.And now, she had gone from his life, and the dreams had gone; and he had shattered the hopes with his own hand. He would never feel her in his arms, or lean down and rest the hollow of his cheek against her hair; he would never see her moving around the house, or watch her shadow as she passed. She would never rest beside him in the vault.The house would remain silent in the years that stretched ahead, as it had remained silent in the years that lay behind. There would never be again even the dream echoes of the children's voices. His portrait—in uniform—would never hang upon the wall; the space where he had dreamed her pictured face would look down into his living one, would be left empty; and the shadows would never take the forms of little children, and only the grim shadow-curtain of darkness would stretch across the barren wall.And he would leave the gallery and go into the desolate library, where he and she had stood that day of the storm, and he would sit down and bow his face on the big, carved table, wondering what was the answer to the twisted riddle of his life.He had told himself he would pick up the broken pieces and remould them for England and the Service, and he had thought to learn the answer here—at home, in Scotland, by the crags and sea.But Scotland had not answered him.VII.Trevelyan let the hand that held Mackenzie's letter fall between his sprawling legs.He had been sitting on the front steps of the house when Mactier had brought him his mail and he had opened it there.There were the papers, and a half dozen bills, a wedding invitation, two sets of reception cards, the announcement of a club meeting, and a letter from his aunt in eastern Scotland, begging him to come to them, if only for a week, and telling him that Cary was with them, and—Mackenzie's letter.He had laid it aside to open last. It might have been he wanted to take his time reading it; or a dread of hearing from any of the old mess. At any rate, he hesitated before opening it, even when he had disposed of the rest of the mail.He read it after awhile, and then he raised his head and looked hard at the group of trees near the house.And so Mackenzie had been transferred to a distant regiment soon after he, Trevelyan, had resigned. There were a good many pages given to the description of the new Station and the new set of officers and men, that Trevelyan skipped over hastily. It was only the last part that had struck him suddenly, like a heavy blow in the face, and that made him, after awhile, pick up the letter and re-read the part."We had a cholera scare this season, but we managed to strangle it, so that it never became more than local, but it kept Clarke—he's my assistant, and a good chap he is—and me, on the jump for a time. The natives won't look out for the water, and I don't believe the entire medical and military force of the United Kingdom combined would be able to make them do so! And of course it's damnation in this special spot where there is more or less cholera every year. I sometimes feel inclined to say if they're such fools let them drink and bathe and drown themselves in the water, for they're not worth saving. But you see, unless the scourge is stamped out among them it goes on spreading and threatens the barracks. We can't spare one of our dandy men. We need 'em all in the Service—every last mother's son of 'em, bless their stout old British hearts!"You saw a case or two at the old Station, and you know something of what it means. But you haven't any idea of an army surgeon's dread of an epidemic—that is a surgeon who has been through the cholera mill. I know, for I've spent most of my term in India, and years ago I was in the midst of a howling time of it—men dropping off by the score! I never want to go through such a thing again. The horror of it is enough to last a man a good deal longer than his natural life—and the chaps who helped me! Well, most of the men who could—and they were brave men, too—took to heels, and the handful that buckled to, to nurse, kept getting sick from fatigue and the vile water—and then when the men died—the fires—"There, you know it, I suppose, or you've heard of it before. No oneknowsit, until one's been through it."The natives were pretty good on the whole a few months ago and so we stamped it out then. Jove! some of them were sick, though—sicker than the sickest dog you ever saw—. There was one fellow—he was worth saving—and I never worked so hard over a man in my life, except Stewart when he was hurt at the old Station. He died, though. All the while I kept thinking of that time with Stewart, and how you brought him back from death. I've never understood that, and I never learned anything like it in myMateria Médica. It was kind of uncanny, but it did the work. I wondered if you could have done something for that fellow. I couldn't. He was a Scotchman, by the way, of the rank and file."Here the letter stopped. On a fresh sheet was a postscript."Just came across this in my desk—two months old. I must have thought I had sent it and didn't. Guess I'll let it go though. Now that the immediate cholera scare is over the natives are playing the dickens again with the water—as they always do. It begins to look like trouble. When the spring rains come it'll play the devil with the Service this time. Well!"Trevelyan put down the letter. There was an odd fullness in his throat.He got up and began to walk to and fro. Once he stopped and kicked at the gravel of the drive with his heel. The odd fullness in his throat grew, and it seemed to him as though an invisible force was impelling him to India.Then he gripped at his self-control, and quieted his throbbing brain by his will. There should be no impetuous passion to lead him wrongly here. He would weigh the risks; he would force himself to think of all it meant—of all the horror of the details—the horrors that were unspeakable, almost unthinkable. He had seen something of them when he was at the Station. Whatever his decision there should be no regrets.All day he wandered around the place—preoccupied. He did not touch his lunch, and he scarcely touched his dinner.In the evening he went into the great library and thought it out—alone.Had the dreams come to this? Was this the answer?Was it the answer?He sat rigid and mute questioning the silence, but the silence gave back no answer.Outside the stars appeared one by one, only to hide themselves behind the mist that slowly had arisen, and the cold chill of midnight crept in through the closed windows. The fire on the hearth faded from its steady glow of gold to the red of the dying embers, and the student lamp on the table flickered and went out. And still Trevelyan sat rigid and mute, with his wide eyes questioning the silence.By and by the silence became alive, and was peopled with the visions of his thoughts. He remembered what those cholera cases were, he had seen in India—the unutterableness of it all—and there swept over him not so much the abhorrence of death as of its manifestation. After all, was it not wholly the close contact with the disease itself he shrank from? Death——Why, death was not so bad.And Trevelyan's tense features relaxed a little.After all, he would not go to court death. He had lived through that desire and conquered it the night he had lain wounded by his own hand in the military hospital. Foolhardiness was not courage, so he had told himself then, and so he believed now.Then, it was not likely that he would catch the plague and die. He had always laughed at disease; he who had never been ill; and had not Mackenzie lived through one of the worst epidemics on record—this promised to be mild, as compared to it. It was not so much the fear of death and disease, but was he willing to accept both if they came?The old passionate love of life he had felt years ago when a boy, fighting the storm and the sea and death, shot through him and thrilled him from his throbbing head to his feet. He rose and flung out his arms and bent them backwards and forwards. He could feel the flow of the blood and thelifethat was there.Then he thought of Mackenzie's letter and he pictured the oncoming of the cholera, and Mackenzie and his little band fighting the scourge unaided. What was the strength of his life for if not to serve these; if not to serve the men who served England! Might he not so serve England, too, and help to save, perhaps, the lives of those who fought in her defense and for her honor?It would be service, but it would not be the service he had dreamed of as a child, and striven for as a boy and a youth. He had thought to serve with the sword, and perhaps—so he had dreamed—meet death in a charge like the charge his father had made. His blood had thrilled at the thought of the rally, and the command he would send down the line!Trevelyan fumbled in the dark for his chair, and sat down.It would never be that. If he should die serving Mackenzie and England what he had done would die with him. He might be mentioned in the Reports, but Reports—Well; why not? What had he done for England that England should remember him? He had only served England in dishonor."When the men died—the fires—"It would not even mean that he could be brought back here—to Scotland, to his crags and sea—to rest in the old vault. That last dream would have to fade even as the other dreams had faded.He might not serve England gloriously; he might help the Service only indirectly, but would not the service and the help be there? Might he not so pick up the broken pieces?Still the silence gave back no answer.The wan gray dawn stole in through the lifting mist and found him wide-eyed and sleepless still.After awhile he rose again and stretched his stiff legs and went down the hall to the front door and opened it. The chill of the early dawn struck him and he shivered. He walked down to the sea and stood there, looking out over the gray, cold waste of waters, and then he climbed to the eyrie, and looked out over the waters again. They seemed colder and grayer than before, and from force of habit he crawled to the ledge and leaned over. Theswish, s-w-i-s-h, of the breakers below reached him, and through the faint mist he could see the white foam. The toss of the spray touched his face in friendly greeting as it had done so often—so often before.The faintest touch of shell-like pink crept into the gray sky and deepened, and was reflected on the sea, and still Trevelyan lingered. The old passionate strength of the boy-child came back to him then, as he hung, listening to the beat of the sea. The self-assurance had gone from the courage, and had been crushed beyond restoration when he had broken the clay; but the courage was there—born afresh—unyielding and enduring and deep as the sea.He rose to his feet and he flung out his arms toward the sea as he had done when he had beaten it and the storm and death, in Cary's home, as a child; but he said nothing, for the odd fullness in his throat. Let death come so, his heart cried. Death, even when it strikes, does not always conquer, and Death was not all.Then he climbed down and went back to the house, and up-stairs and flung himself on his bed.The sea had answered his questionings.Thuswould he serve the Service.VIII.It was late in the forenoon when Trevelyan awoke. He lay still awhile listening to the beat of the sea on the crags. The music of the waters had been his reveille since a child, when he had used to get up with the break of the day. The old triumphant note that had been missing in the sea's song so long was in it to-day. He did not define it, but he was acutely conscious of its presence, and it haunted him while dressing and all during his lonely breakfast.Then he went up-stairs and got his Gladstone and rummaged through his bureau drawers and closets, preparing for a short journey. Later, he sent for Mactier.The old man came at once and stood in the doorway respectful and silent, watching his master pack."Is that you, Mactier? Well, I'm off again. I'm going to run over to Mr. John's. I'll be back day after to-morrow or the next—sure."Mactier twirled his cap around and around with his hands, and looked down at it hard."Ay, sir.""I'll come right back from there," Trevelyan went on, sorting collars, as he spoke, "and then I'll go over the accounts with you and see what the tenants want. I'm going back to India as soon as I can get there."Mactier's stoic Scotch features showed no surprise."Ay, sir," he said again, in a low voice, "'Tis what I've expected this lang time."Trevelyan looked up from his packing, amused."You have—have you?""Is it the army, sir?" asked Mactier, doubtfully.Trevelyan sat back on his heels."No," he said, briefly, not meeting Mactier's eyes, "it's the cholera."The cap Mactier had been twirling dropped suddenly from his hand and he came a step forward. The long years in which Trevelyan had grown to be a man faded from Mactier's consciousness; the big retired officer of the Queen's service, was a boy again—the boy whom he had flung across his shoulder when he was wounded and brought home through the darkness of that long moorland night."Not the cholera, laddie! O, not the cholera!""That's just what it's going to be," said Trevelyan, wheeling around suddenly on his heel. "Where in thunder is that shirt?"The old impetuous decision brought Mactier back to his surroundings at once. He was again the old retainer with the respectful manner and the stoic Scotch face. He stooped and picked from the floor the shirt that had fallen from the bed."Here it is, sir," he said."That's it. Thanks." Trevelyan gave the shirt a shake and laid it in the Gladstone. "I'm just going to look around out there—you know I never could stay long in one place at a time, Mactier—and perhaps help the soldiers a little. I'll be back before you know it!"Mactier continued to hand him slowly one by one the articles on the bed, which Trevelyan put into the Gladstone. The old man was silent.Trevelyan closed the Gladstone with a snap and looked up, a quizzical smile in his eyes."You're not afraid I'm going to get the cholera and die—are you?"Mactier looked down at him adoringly."Ay, sir, I fear just that."Trevelyan laughed."Nonsense! Nothing has ever killed me yet." He rose and pushed the Gladstone to one side with his foot. "When I get back from Aberdeen, we'll fix everything up for the year. If anything goes wrong or you want any advice, you can refer to Mr. Granger as usual. He'll come up from Edinburgh if necessary.""Veera gude, sir.""I guess that's about all for the present. You'd better tell James to have the trap around in plenty of time to get me to that afternoon train."Trevelyan reached the Stewarts' the next morning. They were not expecting him, and the little country station was deserted. He hired a carriage and a man, and was driven the seven miles that lay between him and the house. He looked out over the long stretch of familiar road with indifferent eyes, and the liveryman who had known him ever since the year his aunt had brought him to Aberdeen county, when his mother had died, wondered at his silence. Trevelyan's heart throbs kept time to the revolving of the carriage wheels."We are taking you to her," they cried again and again—maddeningly. "You are to see her again," they cried, and his heart was in his throat as the carriage turned in at the big twisted iron gates.He caught sight of her a long distance off, and before the noise of the approaching wheels had attracted attention. She was a little apart from the group that was gathered on the side piazza Malcolm Stewart had added years ago to the rambling old house. She was seated on a step, her big shade hat covered with wild flowers, lying at her feet, and adding a touch of color to the pale effect of her gray dress. Her hands were resting in her lap and she was looking off absent-mindedly toward the stretch of sunlit beach.Mrs. Stewart was reading aloud, now and then putting out her hand to stroke John's, that rested on the arm of the big garden chair drawn close to hers. He was looking steadily up at the white clouds sailing overhead and smiling to himself—not listening to the reading. Tom Cameron was teasing Maggie's collie because he did not dare tease Maggie.And all about the group the noonday sun of autumn lay as warm and bright as it might have done in summer.It was Maggie who first heard the carriage and who caught sight of its approach around the curve in the long drive. She scrambled to her feet, and gathering up her skirts tore down the steps and drive to meet it, Tom Cameron at her heels and the collie bringing up the rear."It's Rob," she shouted, breathlessly, and tripped suddenly and lay sprawling on the ground, the collie barking frantically and whirling around her in the dust of the gravel.Trevelyan flung the reins to the liveryman and jumped down."Hello, Maggie," he cried, picking her up before Cameron could reach her. "Hello, Tom! There, don't bark yourself mad, Bruce! Hello, everybody!"They gathered around him, and his aunt kissed him affectionately."You're a good boy," she said, the charm of a rare smile lighting up her eyes. "But why did you not wire you were coming so that we could have met you? Your boxes are coming later?""Thought I'd surprise you all. Here's my box now." He motioned to the liveryman, who was lifting his Gladstone out of the trap."That?" said Maggie scornfully.Trevelyan laughed, conscious the while that Cary was coming toward him."It's good to see you again," she said simply, putting her hand in his and looking straight into his eyes, "But I said you wouldn't come!""Did you?" he asked, forgetting the group around him as he looked at her. "Why?"She smiled slowly."Oh, I hardly know. I suppose because I thought you wouldn't leave home and your old crags and your big thunder storms. We're so much quieter here."Trevelyan turned sharply and beat his big hand softly against John's shoulder."How are you, old man?" he asked, not raising his eyes from his own hand."Fine. I'm getting on my feet again. I drive myself now, and ride a little and walk.""Good. Hello, Maggie—going on breaking Tom's heart?" he pulled disrespectfully at one of Maggie's stray curls, while Cameron fumed inwardly.Maggie nodded cheerfully and beckoned Cameron to come and wipe the dust from her dress with his handkerchief.They bore Trevelyan back with them to the piazza, and Mrs. Stewart sent for some lunch, which he ate out there in the midst of them. Stewart flung himself back in his big garden chair a little distance away and shaded his eyes with his hand, studying Trevelyan's face. There was something in it he could not understand and it haunted him. He continued to watch it all the morning, and when Trevelyan was playing tennis with Cameron. And later his eyes would wander from Trevelyan to Cary, sitting over with his sister at the tea table. He noticed with a great pain at his heart that Cary was watching Trevelyan too, and that there rested over her face an expression that he, who had studied her every mood, had never seen before, and he wondered suddenly if he had been a fool—living in a fool's paradise of late. Perhaps it was Trevelyan after all—perhaps—Perhaps, too, the light that had sometimes crept shyly into her eyes during these last days—as shyly as a sunbeam creeps into gray wells of beauty—had not dawned for him. And all their walks upon the beach; and all their drives together; and all their watching of the rising moon had been nothing to her after all. And they had beenhislife!All night he lay awake, suffering dumbly, not knowing that Trevelyan in the adjoining room lay stretched across the bed, his face buried in the pillow, wondering passionately how he was to say "good-bye" to her to-morrow—without her knowing! Without her knowing!IX.At dawn Trevelyan got up and waited at the window for the sunrise. By and by he could hear the servants moving below stairs. The long minutes passed. From a turn in the drive he could see Martin returning with the mail that had come in late the night before. He watched him curiously as he paused to speak with McGuire, the gardener, and he wondered in an indifferent sort of way what he was saying that caused the latter to suddenly grow so excited. He rose and went down stairs, meeting Martin at the door."Anything the matter?"Martin jerked off his cap awkwardly, and handed him the mail and the papers."It's them Gordon 'Ighlanders, sir," he said. "If you'll look at the paper—"Trevelyan opened the sheet.Martin watched him from a respectful distance. He saw Trevelyan crush the paper suddenly in his hand and turn sharply on his heel, and go into the library and close the door. "I thought that there would stir Master Robert up," he muttered. "Law! that was awful fine, an' won't Betty stare an' hollow!"An hour later the family assembled in the breakfast room."Where is Robert?" asked Mrs. Stewart, sitting down.John shook his head."His room's empty. Must be taking a walk. What has become of the morning paper?"Trevelyan appeared suddenly in the doorway. He held the paper in his hand, and his face was as white as the sheet. His uncle rose hastily."Great heavens, boy! What's the matter?""Matter?" Trevelyan's voice rang out excitedly. "Read that!"Half a dozen hands reached out for the paper. Trevelyan snatched it hungrily back."Let me read it to you! It's the Gordon Highlanders." Trevelyan's words stumbled over each other. "They've assaulted the Dargai Hill! The Gurkhas, Dorsets and Derbys couldn't take it! Then General Kempster ordered the Gordon Highlanders and the Third Sikhs to reinforce the fighting line. The pipers played the 'Cock of the North,' and then the mixed troops—the Highlanders and the Dorsets and Gurkhas and Derbys and Sikhs swept across! God! Look at the list of the dead!"Trevelyan tossed the paper to John and turned away and leaned against the sideboard, his elbows on it, his head in his hands.Young Stewart caught the paper and sat down at the table and spread it out in front of him with nervous fingers, and began to read, the rest gathering around him. The Highlanders of Aberdeen!The breakfast stood untouched, growing colder every minute, but no one thought of it.Young Stewart's voice got husky now and then, and when he was half way through the sheet, he pushed it over to Cameron and rose."I guess you'd better finish it," he said.It was hard to forget that if it had not been for that India transfer, he would have been with the Highlanders!Trevelyan came forward suddenly, and leaned over Cary's chair."Isn't it splendid," he said. "That's the way we Scotch fight—" he broke off abruptly, recoiling before the consciousness that he had not fought so."It's grand," cried the American girl, her breath coming quickly.The elder Stewart looked up for a moment from the paper he was reading over Cameron's shoulder."You ought to have been there, Robert! That's just your kind of work!""I wish to God I had!"Mrs. Stewart crossed the room and went over to where John was sitting at the furthest end of the table, his chin in his hand. She sat down by him and leaned forward to speak to him."I know it's hard," she said, "but think how I would have felt!"Stewart drew outlines on the cloth with the breakfast knife he had picked up."We won't talk of it," he answered, and he turned his face away.His mother said nothing, and by and by she rose and went back to the group. Something in her face as she came up to them attracted Trevelyan and he stopped short in his excited talk and looked toward the solitary figure at the end of the table. His grasp suddenly relaxed on Cary's chair and he went up to Stewart and sat down on the arm of his chair and gripped hard at his shoulder."I'm a brute," he said in a low voice, and he kept his grip on Stewart's arm, and it was he who by and by led the others to calm down and eat their breakfast after some sort of a fashion.He was to leave at midnight, and he had come especially to see Cary, but he scarcely saw her throughout the length of the long day. After that he devoted himself to Stewart, forcing him to think and speak of other things besides the great excitement of the hour. He laughed with him; he talked to him, and they went over their boyhood again. It was as it had once been between them, before they had grown to men. Once in the twilight Trevelyan spoke of Cary."Things are all going to pull straight between you," he said.But Stewart, remembering the look on Cary's face, when she had been watching Trevelyan the day before, shook his head.It was not until Trevelyan went to dress for dinner that he realized that the real hardness of the task lay undone. He would leave at midnight, and only God knew when he would come to Aberdeen again—and God was silent. To-night would mean "good-bye."After dinner he went up to Cary as she was sitting at the piano in the music room."Won't you come for a walk on the beach?"She looked up, flushed, and her hands fell back upon the keys discordantly."Why—I don't know. Isn't it too cold?""It isn't cold," he said, picking up a white cashmere shawl and flinging it across her bare shoulders. "Come."A tone in his voice caught and held her wavering and turned it to decision. She rose.They passed Stewart in the hall, on his way to the music room, his flute in his hand."We're going down to the shore for a little while," said Trevelyan, pausing before moving on.Stewart nodded."Oh, all right. Don't get cold, Cary."And he went on to the deserted music room.Trevelyan led her down the little path to the beach. He talked in a matter of fact way on indifferent subjects, as though to set her at her ease. He smiled grimly to the darkness."She's afraid I'll forget myself," he kept thinking.They came from out of the strip of woods and its shadows to the beach, stretching away on either hand in the distance, and sloping ahead of them into the sea that kissed it and then receded, holding it at arm's length before it embraced it again, as a lover does his sweetheart. The slow creeping up and retreating of the waters came faintly and soothingly to their ears. Far off a faint light appeared in the heavens, marking the rising moon. The burden of the day and the excitement of the battle crept off and were lost in the shadows."I haven't seen the moon rise on the beach since I was a youngster," said Trevelyan."It's beautiful," said Cary. "I always get near the moonlight when I can.""Do you? Well, it pays one. It is beautiful. I don't believe I ever quite appreciated the moon and the beach here when I was a little chap.""Your aunt once told me how unhappy you were when they brought you here—to Aberdeen county.""I fancy that's pretty straight. I never took kindly to the level beach. I wanted my crags and my breakers and old Mactier. Mactier and the crags and the breakers were always associated together in my small mind."He laughed."I suppose so; but it's so peaceful here—" Cary broke off."Yes; but do you know I've a notion that some day or other, you'll come often to the old place in Argyll and you'll love it as I love it now."Cary looked up at him quickly. Could it be that he still hoped that some day—She shook her head."It's beautiful," she said, "but it's terrible! The beat of the sea on the crags always seems to be chanting something that I can't understand. It's a foolish idea, isn't it?"Trevelyan walked down to the water's edge."It's been chanting to me ever since I was born," he replied.He looked out over the quiet waters."The sea here don't talk to me," he went on. "It never did. It isn't like my Scotland! Come, we'd better walk a little; you'll get cold standing."She gathered the cashmere that had slipped from her shoulders around her, and brought it up, covering her head. Her face white as the white moonlight looked out from its folds. Once a wave bolder than its fellows, crept up and wet her feet and the edge of the long skirt she was holding with one hand. She scarcely noticed it. Once she turned her face away from Trevelyan's and looked out across the shining sea, to where it lay dark against the horizon. A great pity and a great awe, of something she could not define, lay heavy upon her and made her silent. It was as if this "good-bye" was to be the longest she had ever said. From the house, showing through the trees, came a stream of light. It was from the music room and it mingled with the white radiance that lay across the sea. And then through the quiet, there stole the first, faint notes of John's flute. The music began softly and caressingly, and rose and filled the spaces all around them. It sobbed and moaned and called entreatingly to her, and then it sank into a marvelous crescendo; only to throb again against the silence—still entreating her to return, before it faded slowly and died away altogether.The sobbing and the moaning of it pulsed in Trevelyan's brain. This was good-bye. It was good-bye as he had never dreamed it. He could have fallen down before that white moon-touched face and cried the good-bye out, clinging to her feet. He could have cried it out, his head upon her breast; he could have cried it out, with her resting in his arms, but silence laid its seal on him instead.Out in India, with Mackenzie, in the awful shadow of the plague, he would remember her so, with her white moon-touched face.What had he done to hope for such a good-bye? Only a man who has won a woman could cry out his heart's fullness so; and he had lost her! What right had he to tell her that he was going away, hoping so to wrest from her some word of approbation or of pity? Might she not say something that she would regret afterwards? He could go back home, and he could write her briefly. Then she would remember this night. Then, whatever he had said or left unsaid to-night or in the note, she would understand.As for him—out in India with Mackenzie, in the awful shadow of the plague, he would remember her so, with her white moon-kissed face. He would hear again, louder than the moans of sufferings, the wondrous love music of Stewart's flute and the song of the sea. It seemed to him he would hear it and see her so, if he were dying. And yet, he told himself, he would have given up his life right there before she should think that he had done this thing because of her approbation or her pity.If he could only have been with the Highlanders at the assault! If—well, death would never come to him so. He had fought that out in the hospital and again the other night at home.The music sobbed itself into silence."The old beach is a good deal prettier by night than I ever used to fancy it could be, as a little chap," he said after awhile. "I'll remember it when I'm back in—Argyll.""Why in the world are you in such a hurry to get back?" asked Cary."Oh, there are some things to be looked out for, and accounts to be gone over with Mactier. I couldn't do without him.""No, indeed. You're going to stay there during the winter, I suppose. You'll go back to London for the season?""I guess not this year," he said. "I'm not much on the society act.""You'll be lonely—won't you?"Trevelyan stopped and beat his foot against the sand and looked down at it."Oh, I've been a lonely kind of a chap all my life," he said in a matter of fact tone.Cary caught her breath quickly, turning away that he might not see her face."It's all my own doing," he went on. "I know it. I never was very sociable. I fancy I was born cross and horrid and crooked."He laughed a little.Cary turned to him and she put out her hand and for a moment it rested on his sleeve. He looked down at her upturned face, on which the moon was shining. A faint smile was folded around her mouth, hiding the pity beneath. She shook her head."Oh, no, you're not!" she said. "You're brave and you're strong, and some day—"He looked into her eyes."Yes—and 'some day'?""You're going to do something fine!"He shook his head in denial."I lost my chance," he said slowly."You will have another," she said, the hope of all the world in her voice. "We all have our second chance.""Not like that—not like those Highlanders—" he broke off and his hands came up swiftly to either side of the lifted, moon-lit face. He could have crushed it, white and radiant as it was, between his hands; he could have kissed and kissed and kissed it!And then his hands came up slowly, and he held her face as gently as the Captain would have done."I am going to take you back to the house," he said, looking down at her. "You are shivering. I might have known you would take cold."She shrank back, trembling from the dumb anguish in his eyes, and covered her own with her hands.Why couldn't he have been with the Highlanders?He drew one of her hands slowly down."Don't," he said; "Don't act so. Did I hurt you?"She shook her head.He raised the hand he held to his lips and he kissed it passionately, holding it close against his mouth for a moment, as though to seal the kiss there."I'm awfully glad you believe in me," he said, "I'm awfully glad for that 'some day' you think of. Shall I tell you about a 'some day,' too?"She nodded in silence."Well, then, 'some day' you'll marry just like all the girls do, but you'll marry some out of sight fellow—" he broke off, and retraced his steps to the house, adjusting his military walk to her slower one.She pulled at the edge of her shawl. She was thinking if it had not been for Trevelyan, Stewart would have been at the Dargai Hill.She bent her head as she entered the strip of wood, and the twigs felt out caressingly and touched her dress as she passed. The breath of the one red rose on her bosom came up to her like the voice of love, and over her white face there stole the faintest color of the rose, and she breathed quicker, remembering the music of the flute.Stewart turned from the long window. He could see them emerging from the darkness of the wood into the moon-lit open. Trevelyan had spoken to him of Cary but what if Cary cared for Trevelyan after all! And he laid the silent flute away.
V.
Weeks later, when Stewart was able, he went around to see Cary.
"It's a dreadful pull—up those stairs," said Cary, rolling forward a chair and looking anxiously at Stewart as he stood wan and breathless, but smiling, in the doorway.
"It never used to be," he panted, sitting down.
His eyes wandered about the room.
"Jove, but it's good to get back here! And you haven't changed things a bit—even the Psyche in her old place! And the little tea kettle—Jove!"
He leaned back restfully.
She laughed and watched him in silence.
"I'll miss it all like the dickens!"
She looked up quickly from the flowers she was just beginning to arrange.
"You are not going away, are you?" she asked.
He nodded and sighed.
"Home—to Scotland. The lease on the place has run out, and they think country air will brace me up a bit—so we're going. It'll seem queer to get back there after all these years."
"You—you're going to give up the Grosvenor Square house?"
"Yes. I suppose, though, we'll come back every year for the season and take a suite at the Langham or the Buckingham Gate. Father has an idea that he'll put me through a course of politics up there, when we're alone, and there's nothing going on." Stewart smiled mirthlessly.
"You are thinking of going into politics, when you get strong?" asked Cary for something to say. A sudden unutterable homesickness had swept over her.
"I'm not sure—it isn't unlikely though. I suppose that's as good a way to serve the country as half a man can—perhaps a little better—to try and help keep one detail of the government's work clean! Father has set his heart on the Diplomatic service for me."
"I should think you'd like that," said Cary. Talking to-day for some reason was an effort.
"I'm not sure. What are you and the Captain going to do with yourselves?"
Cary leaned against the back of a chair, tearing a stray rose leaf to pieces. She looked down at it as she spoke.
"Papa wants another tramp through the Alps. I'm not in the mood for tramping, but he's been so good I can't say a word. When we've climbed Mont Blanc again and come down, I think I'll get Daddy to take me home. I think I'm a little mite homesick."
She turned quickly and buried her face in the roses. An odd light sprang to Stewart's eyes.
"Haven't you been happy in England?" he asked.
Cary lifted her head, her face dyed with the deep red of the roses.
"Happy! There's no place like England—except America," she said. "I love every stone in England—in the United Kingdom! Months ago Daddy and I spent a July in Hertfordshire. I can see it all now; the glorious green of everything; the undulating country and the woods and the scattered old cottages, with the village in the distance and the church spire showing, and the little river and the cornfields and the poppies!" She breathed quicker. "There is only one thing sweeter I know—the old fort at home and the long beach and the sea."
She stopped, and the red of the roses faded. She went on slowly.
"Yes, I guess I'm a little bit homesick, for the beach and the sea."
"Do you remember when we were crossing I asked you to let me take you to my home in Scotland when the homesickness came?" asked Stewart. "You might come to us when the Captain is re-climbing Mont Blanc."
He paused, waiting for an answer, but Cary was silent.
"Wouldn't you come?"
She threw the last bit of the torn leaf away and came toward him and stopped, her hands on the back of a chair, a smile creeping into her eyes.
"I might—if I was asked," she said demurely.
He laughed like a boy.
"Mother'll see to that."
"She'll have to," said Cary, tossing her head.
"But you'd still be homesick?"
She wrinkled up her forehead.
"Goodness, even Scotland isn't America," she answered. "Why, I suppose I would—some!"
Stewart closed the carriage door decidedly. Then he leaned back and stared into the mirror opposite, addressing the reflection there. The odd light had come back to his eyes.
"It's what I've been waiting for," he said, speaking aloud and slowly; "it's what I've been waiting for all these years. She's homesick, and she shall come home—to me."
VI.
To Trevelyan, up in Scotland, each day evolved itself into an eternity. There were the lonely breakfasts in the mornings; the lonely walks about the grounds, or out on the steep, bare crags; the lonely lunches; the lonely afternoons spent in wandering around the silent house; the lonelier evenings in which the unread book would drop from his hand to the floor, and he would stare absently into the shadows; the lonely wakeful nights—it was always loneliness.
Old Mactier would often pause in his morning work and look after the solitary figure and ponder and shake his head before he went back to his duties. Trevelyan sometimes used to stop by him and talk to him a little before he resumed his walk. Once he carried Mactier off to the moorlands for a week's shooting and Mactier was actually conscious that Trevelyan seemed happier with his gun under his arm again than he had been since the day of his mysterious return.
It was Trevelyan, not Mactier, who led the hunt in those days, and the old man would press after him, sometimes stumbling with the fatigue he was too proud to acknowledge, and glorying in the prowess of the great strong figure ahead, that he had carried as a child and in whose hands he had placed the first firearms—almost before the child was strong enough to hold the weapon or could pull the trigger by himself.
If Trevelyan exhausted the old retainer, he tired himself too, and at night he would drop, almost too weary to take off his hunting boots, and go to sleep, and sleep heavily, dreamlessly, as he had not done for weeks.
It was a relief, that, to get away from the haunting shadow in his dreams; and he blessed passionately the fatigue that brought even for so brief a time, forgetfulness.
At the end of the week he and Mactier went home, and the inactivity and the loneliness and the sleeplessness grew greater than before.
There was no face of his own kind to greet him here, in Scotland; the Camerons were his nearest neighbors, and the Camerons were away—Tom in Aberdeen. There was no one to help him, even if they could, to beat back the blind despair that threatened him with mental and with moral death.
One day he ordered out the hounds and rode across country until the fields and trees and fences became blurred together by the touch of twilight. He returned mud stained and mortally weary and stalked into the dining room and over to the sideboard, where he locked his table wines. He took out a decanter and hunted around for a glass, and carried both into the library, and sat down. Then he poured some of the wine and swallowed it at a mouthful. He filled the glass again and drank the liquor leisurely, lounging back in his chair with a sigh of content. After all, he declared, there was nothing like a bracer when a chap was fagged out.
By and by, he slipped down a little in his chair and stretched his legs, still encased in their mud-stained boots, straight out in front of him and went to sleep. When he awoke it was quite dark, and he sat still, staring through the uncurtained window into the night, and conscious of a delicious languor. Then as his faculties became more acute and the old spectre returned to haunt him, he instinctively stretched forth his hand in the blackness and fumbled for the decanter and the glass. He drunk deeply once, twice, three times—and when he raised the glass for the fourth time his hand shook and there was an odd rushing sound in his head.
Suddenly he sat forward in his chair, pushed the glass and decanter from him roughly and flung out his arms across the table. The odd rushing sound subsided, and he became aware that the wine was dripping from the table to the floor, where he had overturned the decanter.
He did not refill it, and the sideboard remained unlocked—and empty.
So the days passed. He would climb up into the eyrie, as he had done as a child and listen to the beating sea below. Once the sea had sung to him of undiscovered lands, whose shores it touched, bearing the message back to him; it had sung of wealth and fame gained by the sword—it was by the sword always—and it had beaten and beaten, and sung of all that he would one day like to be; and of what some day he would be and achieve. Once it had sung of love—of its mystery and the essence of its life—
Now—
He would crawl to the edge of the crag and peer over into the white foam, holding on to the edge until the old boyish dizziness came back; but unlike in the old days, there was never a woman's face in the foam now. What right had he to look for a woman's face in the foam!
[image]"What right had he to look for a woman's face in the foam?"
[image]
[image]
"What right had he to look for a woman's face in the foam?"
And the song of the sea was the song of death and dishonor. He might climb the crag to-day, and to-morrow, and every to-morrow of his life, and the song would not change. The sea was a vast organ; he could not change its tunes back to the old ones; he could not control it, and it went on, rolling out its fierce, deep music of dishonor.
And then he would leave the sea and the crags and go back into the empty house. The house was only a shade less bad; with its deserted rooms and its long gallery of dead and gone Campbells and Trevelyans.
He had wandered into the gallery once or twice. The faces on the canvases, grown indistinct with the years, seemed to look back at him without recognition that he was of their race and line. What claim had they on him or he on them? The men had been brave and the women fair—so the history and traditions of the house had said, even if the stiff painted figures and the severe painted faces often said otherwise—the men had always been in the front wherever they were needed for the defense of Scotland and her rights, and later they had defended England too. If they had not fought for her with the sword, they had with tongue or pen—if they had not been soldiers, they had been powers in the government or in the pulpit. Even the solemn-faced preacher near the big window at the furthest end of the gallery, when eloquence had failed, had left the old kirk to strike a blow for King Charlie. The women, too, had been brave—brave in the sacrifice of beauty and wealth for the upholding of Scottish rights, and the renouncing of husbands and lovers and sons for Scotland.
At the other side of the gallery hung his father's race—the Trevelyans; and opposite the solemn-faced preacher, near to the window where the sun struck it in the morning, was the picture of his mother. It had been taken of her in the first years of her marriage, soon after he had been born. People had said that, as a child, he had held his head proudly, like hers.
The grave, smiling eyes seemed to follow him as he turned hastily from the portrait. She had gloried in the traditions of her race; she had been proud—justly—of her line. He thanked God she was dead—that he might remember her as the portrait had painted her to be—on the flood tide of her love and her beauty and her strength.
There was the picture of his father, in his full regimentals. He had been years older than his wife, but how they had loved each other; how proud they had been of each other's race, and how proud they had been of him. He was glad that his father was traveling in the Far East and had not seen him or demanded explanations since his return. He would have been obliged to meet the questionings with silence. It was better so.
Between the two portraits hung one of himself as a child. How his father and mother had watched the growing of the portrait under the master's brush, waiting for its completion, that it might be hung in the gallery. It had been painted the year his mother had died—a year before he went to America. The artist had taken something of the grace and alertness of the great hound that had rested at the boy's feet and put it into the supple limbs of the boy himself. He had painted into the boy's eyes the reflection of the gray stormy sea, and had lent them something of the gray sea's strength.
And he had been like that as a child, with all the promise of a ripe manhood! And now that he had grown to be a man——
There was a long stretch of empty wall space next to the portrait of his father, and his father had once laughingly told him that his portrait should hang there, painted in uniform, when he had left Woolwich and won his spurs and returned after seeing service.
And he had returned from service without the uniform!
He had used to come and dream here after the Woolwich years, whenever he could get off from duty or was not with Cary. He had come here often in that winter when Cary was away in France. And he had planned his portrait hanging so, in uniform, with hers near his—even as his mother's was near his father's. And sometimes when the sun had gone and the darkness had crept in, the shadows had taken other forms—the forms of children—who would troop up and take their places on the empty spaces waiting for them on the wall.
He had dreamed of her—-of Cary—as a strong passionate nature dreams of its best beloved. He had fancied her in a hundred different guises—at the head of his table, moving around the house, as its mistress, talking to old Mactier and his tenantry, as the master's wife; he had dreamed of her, after he and she had lived together alone for a period of ineffable bliss, as the mother of his children; strong sons and fair daughters, that would reflect her sweetness and his strength—the completion of their love. He had dreamed of the time when the house would ring with their voices, and then of the days when the house had lapsed into silence again, when learning love's mystery they had gone to homes of their own; when he and she would live on in a love that time could not change, nor age wither; how later she would lay him in the tomb of his ancestors, and later still they would put her close beside him and his people. He had never dreamed of her dying first, or of his life without her.
And now, she had gone from his life, and the dreams had gone; and he had shattered the hopes with his own hand. He would never feel her in his arms, or lean down and rest the hollow of his cheek against her hair; he would never see her moving around the house, or watch her shadow as she passed. She would never rest beside him in the vault.
The house would remain silent in the years that stretched ahead, as it had remained silent in the years that lay behind. There would never be again even the dream echoes of the children's voices. His portrait—in uniform—would never hang upon the wall; the space where he had dreamed her pictured face would look down into his living one, would be left empty; and the shadows would never take the forms of little children, and only the grim shadow-curtain of darkness would stretch across the barren wall.
And he would leave the gallery and go into the desolate library, where he and she had stood that day of the storm, and he would sit down and bow his face on the big, carved table, wondering what was the answer to the twisted riddle of his life.
He had told himself he would pick up the broken pieces and remould them for England and the Service, and he had thought to learn the answer here—at home, in Scotland, by the crags and sea.
But Scotland had not answered him.
VII.
Trevelyan let the hand that held Mackenzie's letter fall between his sprawling legs.
He had been sitting on the front steps of the house when Mactier had brought him his mail and he had opened it there.
There were the papers, and a half dozen bills, a wedding invitation, two sets of reception cards, the announcement of a club meeting, and a letter from his aunt in eastern Scotland, begging him to come to them, if only for a week, and telling him that Cary was with them, and—Mackenzie's letter.
He had laid it aside to open last. It might have been he wanted to take his time reading it; or a dread of hearing from any of the old mess. At any rate, he hesitated before opening it, even when he had disposed of the rest of the mail.
He read it after awhile, and then he raised his head and looked hard at the group of trees near the house.
And so Mackenzie had been transferred to a distant regiment soon after he, Trevelyan, had resigned. There were a good many pages given to the description of the new Station and the new set of officers and men, that Trevelyan skipped over hastily. It was only the last part that had struck him suddenly, like a heavy blow in the face, and that made him, after awhile, pick up the letter and re-read the part.
"We had a cholera scare this season, but we managed to strangle it, so that it never became more than local, but it kept Clarke—he's my assistant, and a good chap he is—and me, on the jump for a time. The natives won't look out for the water, and I don't believe the entire medical and military force of the United Kingdom combined would be able to make them do so! And of course it's damnation in this special spot where there is more or less cholera every year. I sometimes feel inclined to say if they're such fools let them drink and bathe and drown themselves in the water, for they're not worth saving. But you see, unless the scourge is stamped out among them it goes on spreading and threatens the barracks. We can't spare one of our dandy men. We need 'em all in the Service—every last mother's son of 'em, bless their stout old British hearts!
"You saw a case or two at the old Station, and you know something of what it means. But you haven't any idea of an army surgeon's dread of an epidemic—that is a surgeon who has been through the cholera mill. I know, for I've spent most of my term in India, and years ago I was in the midst of a howling time of it—men dropping off by the score! I never want to go through such a thing again. The horror of it is enough to last a man a good deal longer than his natural life—and the chaps who helped me! Well, most of the men who could—and they were brave men, too—took to heels, and the handful that buckled to, to nurse, kept getting sick from fatigue and the vile water—and then when the men died—the fires—
"There, you know it, I suppose, or you've heard of it before. No oneknowsit, until one's been through it.
"The natives were pretty good on the whole a few months ago and so we stamped it out then. Jove! some of them were sick, though—sicker than the sickest dog you ever saw—. There was one fellow—he was worth saving—and I never worked so hard over a man in my life, except Stewart when he was hurt at the old Station. He died, though. All the while I kept thinking of that time with Stewart, and how you brought him back from death. I've never understood that, and I never learned anything like it in myMateria Médica. It was kind of uncanny, but it did the work. I wondered if you could have done something for that fellow. I couldn't. He was a Scotchman, by the way, of the rank and file."
Here the letter stopped. On a fresh sheet was a postscript.
"Just came across this in my desk—two months old. I must have thought I had sent it and didn't. Guess I'll let it go though. Now that the immediate cholera scare is over the natives are playing the dickens again with the water—as they always do. It begins to look like trouble. When the spring rains come it'll play the devil with the Service this time. Well!"
Trevelyan put down the letter. There was an odd fullness in his throat.
He got up and began to walk to and fro. Once he stopped and kicked at the gravel of the drive with his heel. The odd fullness in his throat grew, and it seemed to him as though an invisible force was impelling him to India.
Then he gripped at his self-control, and quieted his throbbing brain by his will. There should be no impetuous passion to lead him wrongly here. He would weigh the risks; he would force himself to think of all it meant—of all the horror of the details—the horrors that were unspeakable, almost unthinkable. He had seen something of them when he was at the Station. Whatever his decision there should be no regrets.
All day he wandered around the place—preoccupied. He did not touch his lunch, and he scarcely touched his dinner.
In the evening he went into the great library and thought it out—alone.
Had the dreams come to this? Was this the answer?
Was it the answer?
He sat rigid and mute questioning the silence, but the silence gave back no answer.
Outside the stars appeared one by one, only to hide themselves behind the mist that slowly had arisen, and the cold chill of midnight crept in through the closed windows. The fire on the hearth faded from its steady glow of gold to the red of the dying embers, and the student lamp on the table flickered and went out. And still Trevelyan sat rigid and mute, with his wide eyes questioning the silence.
By and by the silence became alive, and was peopled with the visions of his thoughts. He remembered what those cholera cases were, he had seen in India—the unutterableness of it all—and there swept over him not so much the abhorrence of death as of its manifestation. After all, was it not wholly the close contact with the disease itself he shrank from? Death——
Why, death was not so bad.
And Trevelyan's tense features relaxed a little.
After all, he would not go to court death. He had lived through that desire and conquered it the night he had lain wounded by his own hand in the military hospital. Foolhardiness was not courage, so he had told himself then, and so he believed now.
Then, it was not likely that he would catch the plague and die. He had always laughed at disease; he who had never been ill; and had not Mackenzie lived through one of the worst epidemics on record—this promised to be mild, as compared to it. It was not so much the fear of death and disease, but was he willing to accept both if they came?
The old passionate love of life he had felt years ago when a boy, fighting the storm and the sea and death, shot through him and thrilled him from his throbbing head to his feet. He rose and flung out his arms and bent them backwards and forwards. He could feel the flow of the blood and thelifethat was there.
Then he thought of Mackenzie's letter and he pictured the oncoming of the cholera, and Mackenzie and his little band fighting the scourge unaided. What was the strength of his life for if not to serve these; if not to serve the men who served England! Might he not so serve England, too, and help to save, perhaps, the lives of those who fought in her defense and for her honor?
It would be service, but it would not be the service he had dreamed of as a child, and striven for as a boy and a youth. He had thought to serve with the sword, and perhaps—so he had dreamed—meet death in a charge like the charge his father had made. His blood had thrilled at the thought of the rally, and the command he would send down the line!
Trevelyan fumbled in the dark for his chair, and sat down.
It would never be that. If he should die serving Mackenzie and England what he had done would die with him. He might be mentioned in the Reports, but Reports—
Well; why not? What had he done for England that England should remember him? He had only served England in dishonor.
"When the men died—the fires—"
It would not even mean that he could be brought back here—to Scotland, to his crags and sea—to rest in the old vault. That last dream would have to fade even as the other dreams had faded.
He might not serve England gloriously; he might help the Service only indirectly, but would not the service and the help be there? Might he not so pick up the broken pieces?
Still the silence gave back no answer.
The wan gray dawn stole in through the lifting mist and found him wide-eyed and sleepless still.
After awhile he rose again and stretched his stiff legs and went down the hall to the front door and opened it. The chill of the early dawn struck him and he shivered. He walked down to the sea and stood there, looking out over the gray, cold waste of waters, and then he climbed to the eyrie, and looked out over the waters again. They seemed colder and grayer than before, and from force of habit he crawled to the ledge and leaned over. Theswish, s-w-i-s-h, of the breakers below reached him, and through the faint mist he could see the white foam. The toss of the spray touched his face in friendly greeting as it had done so often—so often before.
The faintest touch of shell-like pink crept into the gray sky and deepened, and was reflected on the sea, and still Trevelyan lingered. The old passionate strength of the boy-child came back to him then, as he hung, listening to the beat of the sea. The self-assurance had gone from the courage, and had been crushed beyond restoration when he had broken the clay; but the courage was there—born afresh—unyielding and enduring and deep as the sea.
He rose to his feet and he flung out his arms toward the sea as he had done when he had beaten it and the storm and death, in Cary's home, as a child; but he said nothing, for the odd fullness in his throat. Let death come so, his heart cried. Death, even when it strikes, does not always conquer, and Death was not all.
Then he climbed down and went back to the house, and up-stairs and flung himself on his bed.
The sea had answered his questionings.
Thuswould he serve the Service.
VIII.
It was late in the forenoon when Trevelyan awoke. He lay still awhile listening to the beat of the sea on the crags. The music of the waters had been his reveille since a child, when he had used to get up with the break of the day. The old triumphant note that had been missing in the sea's song so long was in it to-day. He did not define it, but he was acutely conscious of its presence, and it haunted him while dressing and all during his lonely breakfast.
Then he went up-stairs and got his Gladstone and rummaged through his bureau drawers and closets, preparing for a short journey. Later, he sent for Mactier.
The old man came at once and stood in the doorway respectful and silent, watching his master pack.
"Is that you, Mactier? Well, I'm off again. I'm going to run over to Mr. John's. I'll be back day after to-morrow or the next—sure."
Mactier twirled his cap around and around with his hands, and looked down at it hard.
"Ay, sir."
"I'll come right back from there," Trevelyan went on, sorting collars, as he spoke, "and then I'll go over the accounts with you and see what the tenants want. I'm going back to India as soon as I can get there."
Mactier's stoic Scotch features showed no surprise.
"Ay, sir," he said again, in a low voice, "'Tis what I've expected this lang time."
Trevelyan looked up from his packing, amused.
"You have—have you?"
"Is it the army, sir?" asked Mactier, doubtfully.
Trevelyan sat back on his heels.
"No," he said, briefly, not meeting Mactier's eyes, "it's the cholera."
The cap Mactier had been twirling dropped suddenly from his hand and he came a step forward. The long years in which Trevelyan had grown to be a man faded from Mactier's consciousness; the big retired officer of the Queen's service, was a boy again—the boy whom he had flung across his shoulder when he was wounded and brought home through the darkness of that long moorland night.
"Not the cholera, laddie! O, not the cholera!"
"That's just what it's going to be," said Trevelyan, wheeling around suddenly on his heel. "Where in thunder is that shirt?"
The old impetuous decision brought Mactier back to his surroundings at once. He was again the old retainer with the respectful manner and the stoic Scotch face. He stooped and picked from the floor the shirt that had fallen from the bed.
"Here it is, sir," he said.
"That's it. Thanks." Trevelyan gave the shirt a shake and laid it in the Gladstone. "I'm just going to look around out there—you know I never could stay long in one place at a time, Mactier—and perhaps help the soldiers a little. I'll be back before you know it!"
Mactier continued to hand him slowly one by one the articles on the bed, which Trevelyan put into the Gladstone. The old man was silent.
Trevelyan closed the Gladstone with a snap and looked up, a quizzical smile in his eyes.
"You're not afraid I'm going to get the cholera and die—are you?"
Mactier looked down at him adoringly.
"Ay, sir, I fear just that."
Trevelyan laughed.
"Nonsense! Nothing has ever killed me yet." He rose and pushed the Gladstone to one side with his foot. "When I get back from Aberdeen, we'll fix everything up for the year. If anything goes wrong or you want any advice, you can refer to Mr. Granger as usual. He'll come up from Edinburgh if necessary."
"Veera gude, sir."
"I guess that's about all for the present. You'd better tell James to have the trap around in plenty of time to get me to that afternoon train."
Trevelyan reached the Stewarts' the next morning. They were not expecting him, and the little country station was deserted. He hired a carriage and a man, and was driven the seven miles that lay between him and the house. He looked out over the long stretch of familiar road with indifferent eyes, and the liveryman who had known him ever since the year his aunt had brought him to Aberdeen county, when his mother had died, wondered at his silence. Trevelyan's heart throbs kept time to the revolving of the carriage wheels.
"We are taking you to her," they cried again and again—maddeningly. "You are to see her again," they cried, and his heart was in his throat as the carriage turned in at the big twisted iron gates.
He caught sight of her a long distance off, and before the noise of the approaching wheels had attracted attention. She was a little apart from the group that was gathered on the side piazza Malcolm Stewart had added years ago to the rambling old house. She was seated on a step, her big shade hat covered with wild flowers, lying at her feet, and adding a touch of color to the pale effect of her gray dress. Her hands were resting in her lap and she was looking off absent-mindedly toward the stretch of sunlit beach.
Mrs. Stewart was reading aloud, now and then putting out her hand to stroke John's, that rested on the arm of the big garden chair drawn close to hers. He was looking steadily up at the white clouds sailing overhead and smiling to himself—not listening to the reading. Tom Cameron was teasing Maggie's collie because he did not dare tease Maggie.
And all about the group the noonday sun of autumn lay as warm and bright as it might have done in summer.
It was Maggie who first heard the carriage and who caught sight of its approach around the curve in the long drive. She scrambled to her feet, and gathering up her skirts tore down the steps and drive to meet it, Tom Cameron at her heels and the collie bringing up the rear.
"It's Rob," she shouted, breathlessly, and tripped suddenly and lay sprawling on the ground, the collie barking frantically and whirling around her in the dust of the gravel.
Trevelyan flung the reins to the liveryman and jumped down.
"Hello, Maggie," he cried, picking her up before Cameron could reach her. "Hello, Tom! There, don't bark yourself mad, Bruce! Hello, everybody!"
They gathered around him, and his aunt kissed him affectionately.
"You're a good boy," she said, the charm of a rare smile lighting up her eyes. "But why did you not wire you were coming so that we could have met you? Your boxes are coming later?"
"Thought I'd surprise you all. Here's my box now." He motioned to the liveryman, who was lifting his Gladstone out of the trap.
"That?" said Maggie scornfully.
Trevelyan laughed, conscious the while that Cary was coming toward him.
"It's good to see you again," she said simply, putting her hand in his and looking straight into his eyes, "But I said you wouldn't come!"
"Did you?" he asked, forgetting the group around him as he looked at her. "Why?"
She smiled slowly.
"Oh, I hardly know. I suppose because I thought you wouldn't leave home and your old crags and your big thunder storms. We're so much quieter here."
Trevelyan turned sharply and beat his big hand softly against John's shoulder.
"How are you, old man?" he asked, not raising his eyes from his own hand.
"Fine. I'm getting on my feet again. I drive myself now, and ride a little and walk."
"Good. Hello, Maggie—going on breaking Tom's heart?" he pulled disrespectfully at one of Maggie's stray curls, while Cameron fumed inwardly.
Maggie nodded cheerfully and beckoned Cameron to come and wipe the dust from her dress with his handkerchief.
They bore Trevelyan back with them to the piazza, and Mrs. Stewart sent for some lunch, which he ate out there in the midst of them. Stewart flung himself back in his big garden chair a little distance away and shaded his eyes with his hand, studying Trevelyan's face. There was something in it he could not understand and it haunted him. He continued to watch it all the morning, and when Trevelyan was playing tennis with Cameron. And later his eyes would wander from Trevelyan to Cary, sitting over with his sister at the tea table. He noticed with a great pain at his heart that Cary was watching Trevelyan too, and that there rested over her face an expression that he, who had studied her every mood, had never seen before, and he wondered suddenly if he had been a fool—living in a fool's paradise of late. Perhaps it was Trevelyan after all—perhaps—
Perhaps, too, the light that had sometimes crept shyly into her eyes during these last days—as shyly as a sunbeam creeps into gray wells of beauty—had not dawned for him. And all their walks upon the beach; and all their drives together; and all their watching of the rising moon had been nothing to her after all. And they had beenhislife!
All night he lay awake, suffering dumbly, not knowing that Trevelyan in the adjoining room lay stretched across the bed, his face buried in the pillow, wondering passionately how he was to say "good-bye" to her to-morrow—without her knowing! Without her knowing!
IX.
At dawn Trevelyan got up and waited at the window for the sunrise. By and by he could hear the servants moving below stairs. The long minutes passed. From a turn in the drive he could see Martin returning with the mail that had come in late the night before. He watched him curiously as he paused to speak with McGuire, the gardener, and he wondered in an indifferent sort of way what he was saying that caused the latter to suddenly grow so excited. He rose and went down stairs, meeting Martin at the door.
"Anything the matter?"
Martin jerked off his cap awkwardly, and handed him the mail and the papers.
"It's them Gordon 'Ighlanders, sir," he said. "If you'll look at the paper—"
Trevelyan opened the sheet.
Martin watched him from a respectful distance. He saw Trevelyan crush the paper suddenly in his hand and turn sharply on his heel, and go into the library and close the door. "I thought that there would stir Master Robert up," he muttered. "Law! that was awful fine, an' won't Betty stare an' hollow!"
An hour later the family assembled in the breakfast room.
"Where is Robert?" asked Mrs. Stewart, sitting down.
John shook his head.
"His room's empty. Must be taking a walk. What has become of the morning paper?"
Trevelyan appeared suddenly in the doorway. He held the paper in his hand, and his face was as white as the sheet. His uncle rose hastily.
"Great heavens, boy! What's the matter?"
"Matter?" Trevelyan's voice rang out excitedly. "Read that!"
Half a dozen hands reached out for the paper. Trevelyan snatched it hungrily back.
"Let me read it to you! It's the Gordon Highlanders." Trevelyan's words stumbled over each other. "They've assaulted the Dargai Hill! The Gurkhas, Dorsets and Derbys couldn't take it! Then General Kempster ordered the Gordon Highlanders and the Third Sikhs to reinforce the fighting line. The pipers played the 'Cock of the North,' and then the mixed troops—the Highlanders and the Dorsets and Gurkhas and Derbys and Sikhs swept across! God! Look at the list of the dead!"
Trevelyan tossed the paper to John and turned away and leaned against the sideboard, his elbows on it, his head in his hands.
Young Stewart caught the paper and sat down at the table and spread it out in front of him with nervous fingers, and began to read, the rest gathering around him. The Highlanders of Aberdeen!
The breakfast stood untouched, growing colder every minute, but no one thought of it.
Young Stewart's voice got husky now and then, and when he was half way through the sheet, he pushed it over to Cameron and rose.
"I guess you'd better finish it," he said.
It was hard to forget that if it had not been for that India transfer, he would have been with the Highlanders!
Trevelyan came forward suddenly, and leaned over Cary's chair.
"Isn't it splendid," he said. "That's the way we Scotch fight—" he broke off abruptly, recoiling before the consciousness that he had not fought so.
"It's grand," cried the American girl, her breath coming quickly.
The elder Stewart looked up for a moment from the paper he was reading over Cameron's shoulder.
"You ought to have been there, Robert! That's just your kind of work!"
"I wish to God I had!"
Mrs. Stewart crossed the room and went over to where John was sitting at the furthest end of the table, his chin in his hand. She sat down by him and leaned forward to speak to him.
"I know it's hard," she said, "but think how I would have felt!"
Stewart drew outlines on the cloth with the breakfast knife he had picked up.
"We won't talk of it," he answered, and he turned his face away.
His mother said nothing, and by and by she rose and went back to the group. Something in her face as she came up to them attracted Trevelyan and he stopped short in his excited talk and looked toward the solitary figure at the end of the table. His grasp suddenly relaxed on Cary's chair and he went up to Stewart and sat down on the arm of his chair and gripped hard at his shoulder.
"I'm a brute," he said in a low voice, and he kept his grip on Stewart's arm, and it was he who by and by led the others to calm down and eat their breakfast after some sort of a fashion.
He was to leave at midnight, and he had come especially to see Cary, but he scarcely saw her throughout the length of the long day. After that he devoted himself to Stewart, forcing him to think and speak of other things besides the great excitement of the hour. He laughed with him; he talked to him, and they went over their boyhood again. It was as it had once been between them, before they had grown to men. Once in the twilight Trevelyan spoke of Cary.
"Things are all going to pull straight between you," he said.
But Stewart, remembering the look on Cary's face, when she had been watching Trevelyan the day before, shook his head.
It was not until Trevelyan went to dress for dinner that he realized that the real hardness of the task lay undone. He would leave at midnight, and only God knew when he would come to Aberdeen again—and God was silent. To-night would mean "good-bye."
After dinner he went up to Cary as she was sitting at the piano in the music room.
"Won't you come for a walk on the beach?"
She looked up, flushed, and her hands fell back upon the keys discordantly.
"Why—I don't know. Isn't it too cold?"
"It isn't cold," he said, picking up a white cashmere shawl and flinging it across her bare shoulders. "Come."
A tone in his voice caught and held her wavering and turned it to decision. She rose.
They passed Stewart in the hall, on his way to the music room, his flute in his hand.
"We're going down to the shore for a little while," said Trevelyan, pausing before moving on.
Stewart nodded.
"Oh, all right. Don't get cold, Cary."
And he went on to the deserted music room.
Trevelyan led her down the little path to the beach. He talked in a matter of fact way on indifferent subjects, as though to set her at her ease. He smiled grimly to the darkness.
"She's afraid I'll forget myself," he kept thinking.
They came from out of the strip of woods and its shadows to the beach, stretching away on either hand in the distance, and sloping ahead of them into the sea that kissed it and then receded, holding it at arm's length before it embraced it again, as a lover does his sweetheart. The slow creeping up and retreating of the waters came faintly and soothingly to their ears. Far off a faint light appeared in the heavens, marking the rising moon. The burden of the day and the excitement of the battle crept off and were lost in the shadows.
"I haven't seen the moon rise on the beach since I was a youngster," said Trevelyan.
"It's beautiful," said Cary. "I always get near the moonlight when I can."
"Do you? Well, it pays one. It is beautiful. I don't believe I ever quite appreciated the moon and the beach here when I was a little chap."
"Your aunt once told me how unhappy you were when they brought you here—to Aberdeen county."
"I fancy that's pretty straight. I never took kindly to the level beach. I wanted my crags and my breakers and old Mactier. Mactier and the crags and the breakers were always associated together in my small mind."
He laughed.
"I suppose so; but it's so peaceful here—" Cary broke off.
"Yes; but do you know I've a notion that some day or other, you'll come often to the old place in Argyll and you'll love it as I love it now."
Cary looked up at him quickly. Could it be that he still hoped that some day—
She shook her head.
"It's beautiful," she said, "but it's terrible! The beat of the sea on the crags always seems to be chanting something that I can't understand. It's a foolish idea, isn't it?"
Trevelyan walked down to the water's edge.
"It's been chanting to me ever since I was born," he replied.
He looked out over the quiet waters.
"The sea here don't talk to me," he went on. "It never did. It isn't like my Scotland! Come, we'd better walk a little; you'll get cold standing."
She gathered the cashmere that had slipped from her shoulders around her, and brought it up, covering her head. Her face white as the white moonlight looked out from its folds. Once a wave bolder than its fellows, crept up and wet her feet and the edge of the long skirt she was holding with one hand. She scarcely noticed it. Once she turned her face away from Trevelyan's and looked out across the shining sea, to where it lay dark against the horizon. A great pity and a great awe, of something she could not define, lay heavy upon her and made her silent. It was as if this "good-bye" was to be the longest she had ever said. From the house, showing through the trees, came a stream of light. It was from the music room and it mingled with the white radiance that lay across the sea. And then through the quiet, there stole the first, faint notes of John's flute. The music began softly and caressingly, and rose and filled the spaces all around them. It sobbed and moaned and called entreatingly to her, and then it sank into a marvelous crescendo; only to throb again against the silence—still entreating her to return, before it faded slowly and died away altogether.
The sobbing and the moaning of it pulsed in Trevelyan's brain. This was good-bye. It was good-bye as he had never dreamed it. He could have fallen down before that white moon-touched face and cried the good-bye out, clinging to her feet. He could have cried it out, his head upon her breast; he could have cried it out, with her resting in his arms, but silence laid its seal on him instead.
Out in India, with Mackenzie, in the awful shadow of the plague, he would remember her so, with her white moon-touched face.
What had he done to hope for such a good-bye? Only a man who has won a woman could cry out his heart's fullness so; and he had lost her! What right had he to tell her that he was going away, hoping so to wrest from her some word of approbation or of pity? Might she not say something that she would regret afterwards? He could go back home, and he could write her briefly. Then she would remember this night. Then, whatever he had said or left unsaid to-night or in the note, she would understand.
As for him—out in India with Mackenzie, in the awful shadow of the plague, he would remember her so, with her white moon-kissed face. He would hear again, louder than the moans of sufferings, the wondrous love music of Stewart's flute and the song of the sea. It seemed to him he would hear it and see her so, if he were dying. And yet, he told himself, he would have given up his life right there before she should think that he had done this thing because of her approbation or her pity.
If he could only have been with the Highlanders at the assault! If—well, death would never come to him so. He had fought that out in the hospital and again the other night at home.
The music sobbed itself into silence.
"The old beach is a good deal prettier by night than I ever used to fancy it could be, as a little chap," he said after awhile. "I'll remember it when I'm back in—Argyll."
"Why in the world are you in such a hurry to get back?" asked Cary.
"Oh, there are some things to be looked out for, and accounts to be gone over with Mactier. I couldn't do without him."
"No, indeed. You're going to stay there during the winter, I suppose. You'll go back to London for the season?"
"I guess not this year," he said. "I'm not much on the society act."
"You'll be lonely—won't you?"
Trevelyan stopped and beat his foot against the sand and looked down at it.
"Oh, I've been a lonely kind of a chap all my life," he said in a matter of fact tone.
Cary caught her breath quickly, turning away that he might not see her face.
"It's all my own doing," he went on. "I know it. I never was very sociable. I fancy I was born cross and horrid and crooked."
He laughed a little.
Cary turned to him and she put out her hand and for a moment it rested on his sleeve. He looked down at her upturned face, on which the moon was shining. A faint smile was folded around her mouth, hiding the pity beneath. She shook her head.
"Oh, no, you're not!" she said. "You're brave and you're strong, and some day—"
He looked into her eyes.
"Yes—and 'some day'?"
"You're going to do something fine!"
He shook his head in denial.
"I lost my chance," he said slowly.
"You will have another," she said, the hope of all the world in her voice. "We all have our second chance."
"Not like that—not like those Highlanders—" he broke off and his hands came up swiftly to either side of the lifted, moon-lit face. He could have crushed it, white and radiant as it was, between his hands; he could have kissed and kissed and kissed it!
And then his hands came up slowly, and he held her face as gently as the Captain would have done.
"I am going to take you back to the house," he said, looking down at her. "You are shivering. I might have known you would take cold."
She shrank back, trembling from the dumb anguish in his eyes, and covered her own with her hands.
Why couldn't he have been with the Highlanders?
He drew one of her hands slowly down.
"Don't," he said; "Don't act so. Did I hurt you?"
She shook her head.
He raised the hand he held to his lips and he kissed it passionately, holding it close against his mouth for a moment, as though to seal the kiss there.
"I'm awfully glad you believe in me," he said, "I'm awfully glad for that 'some day' you think of. Shall I tell you about a 'some day,' too?"
She nodded in silence.
"Well, then, 'some day' you'll marry just like all the girls do, but you'll marry some out of sight fellow—" he broke off, and retraced his steps to the house, adjusting his military walk to her slower one.
She pulled at the edge of her shawl. She was thinking if it had not been for Trevelyan, Stewart would have been at the Dargai Hill.
She bent her head as she entered the strip of wood, and the twigs felt out caressingly and touched her dress as she passed. The breath of the one red rose on her bosom came up to her like the voice of love, and over her white face there stole the faintest color of the rose, and she breathed quicker, remembering the music of the flute.
Stewart turned from the long window. He could see them emerging from the darkness of the wood into the moon-lit open. Trevelyan had spoken to him of Cary but what if Cary cared for Trevelyan after all! And he laid the silent flute away.