Chapter V: Part 5

"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 one _knows_ it, 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 my _Materia 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 the _life_ that 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. The _swish_, 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.

_Thus_ would 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 been _his_ life!

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.

*X.*

At midnight Trevelyan stumbled blindly into the railway carriage, without a backward glance at Stewart, who had insisted on taking the long, dark drive to the station to see him off. Once in the darkness Trevelyan had put his hand heavily on Stewart’s knee, and leaned back and stared into the blackness ahead. All that Stewart had ever been to him—all that they had ever been to each other, swept across him.

Out there with the plague and Mackenzie, his eyes would ache for a sight of Stewart’s strong, kind face, but Stewart would not know. Out there, in the shadow of death, he would remember Stewart, and his heart would cry out passionately for him, but Stewart would not know. And he would think of Cary—how he would think of her—of her and Stewart. He would think of them together.

If he might only tell Stewart what this parting meant—that it was longer than he dreamed—and that he was not merely seeing him off to Argyll.

But what right had he to speak? Stewart could not change his decision now; nor his uncle, nor his aunt, nor his father, were he home, nor all London, nor—Cary. They would grieve when the letters came to them, but they would be spared the pain of parting. It was better so.

It was toward the evening of the next day when he reached home, and after he had finished his dinner he went into the big library, walked over to his desk and unlocked it.

"Now for it," he said briefly, and he sat down and began sorting papers, preparatory to going over them the next day with Mactier and his barrister, Mr. Granger, whom he had wired to come from Edinburgh and meet him at home the next morning.

He worked far into the night, and the next day it was the same. Literally he set his house in order. Granger returned to Edinburgh on the evening train, and Mactier received his instructions—in silence, shifting his old cap between his fingers, but not looking up to meet Trevelyan’s eyes.

Then Trevelyan had dinner. After the meal was over he tried to rest but he could not, and he went out into the hall and began to walk up and down—swiftly. There was no other sound in all the house but his rapid walking. Solitude enveloped him and the home of his people. Once he stopped and looked at the armor on the wall; once he opened the front door and stood on the steps staring into the night. The Pleiades were brighter and further off he remembered, thinking afterwards, than he had ever seen them; but the rest—the stretch of winding drive and lawn and trees lay wrapped in profound shadow and appeared unreal; only the Pleiades and the beating of the surf against the crags, seemed the things that existed.

The night air was cold and he went in and back to the library, and put another log upon the flickering blaze, and as the wood caught fire warmed his hands with the heat. After awhile he lighted his candle and went upstairs.

The next morning he said good-bye to the tenantry; in the afternoon he packed his grip and the few things needed for the coming journey. In the evening he wrote half a dozen letters—brief notes telling his father and his aunt and uncle of his intended return to India. They were all worded much the same. The old spirit of restlessness was on him. He wanted excitement. He was running out to India for a time to watch Mackenzie fight the cholera. They were not to worry. He expected to have a great time of it. His note to John was even briefer, but it was more serious in tone.

"DEAR OLD JOHNNY:—" it ran:

"Good-bye. I’m off for India again. You see I can’t keep away from it. I suppose it’s on the order of a man wanting to return to the scene of his murder.

"I’m a lucky dog, and of course I expect to return, but the plague isn’t always considerate of persons, and there’s the hundredth chance. I expect to come back and live at home myself. Still Granger has the will. If I don’t you’re to have the old place. You’ll come to it sometimes—hey; and have an eye on Mactier?

"I guess you were about right about my quitting the Service. I wasn’t fit.

"After all, if I hadn’t turned coward and lost my grip on myself, you’d have been with the Highlanders at the Dargai Hill, and Cary—

"Well, that don’t excuse me. I don’t mean it as an excuse. I’ve never been worth a shilling or made anything of my life, but I’ve thought a lot of you—always.

"Good-bye,

"ROB."

And then Trevelyan drew forth a clean sheet of paper and stared hard at it. What was there to say to Cary!

He dipped his pen in the ink.

"My Love," he wrote, and then stopped short, and stared at the words. Then he crumpled the sheet fiercely in his fingers and flung it into the fire.

"My dear Cary," he wrote, trying again, and then he laid down his pen and laughed harshly. The black letters stared back at him like small demons, grinning derisively.

The third time he started without a heading.

"I’ve written to the rest," it began, "and they will tell you of my plans. To you, however, I want to say something more. Now, that I am writing, there seems little to say to you, and yet, I’m human enough—if you will, coward enough still—to have you, at least, know that I have not been altogether candid with the others. I understand the danger. It is because of the danger that I am going. There’s no glory in it, and I don’t want any fuss, but there are our men in want—it’s something for the Service. You understand—don’t you?

"I was afraid of making you sad that night on the beach if I told you, and I selfishly, too, wanted you to myself, as you always were, and untouched by worry. I shall think of that walk with you, and the moonlight on your face, and the music—! After all, Johnny’s the only fellow fit for you. You don’t mind my saying so—do you?

"The sea was quiet that night—as quiet as you were, and my heart was the only tempestuous thing on the beach; and your face, oh, Cary,—your face!

"There’s no telling, of course, but I’ve a queer notion I’m not coming back—ever any more, as we used to say as children; but the sea will go on beating against the crags here—home on the Scottish coast, and perhaps by and by you’ll be able to understand the song?

"I love you, but I don’t love you as I did. It’s the Service, first, somehow. Am I building up the broken pieces, do you suppose? It’s a job—isn’t it?

"But my heart is breaking over this letter!

"There! I don’t want to make you sad. There’s nothing to be sad over. The tangle is just getting unsnarled; and you know there’s an end to every thread—

"There’s a big empty space on the wall of the gallery here. If you would _let_ Johnny hang your picture there! If you’d give him the right! And the sword—would you mind keeping my sword?

"It’s getting late. I make an early start to-morrow. I enclose Mackenzie’s letter. I got it less than a week ago.

"I shall never forget you. I think that is all.

"ROBERT TREVELYAN."

*XI.*

After Trevelyan left, the household in Aberdeen settled back again into its usual state of placidity.

The second day after his departure was threatening, and Cameron and Maggie killed time by pretending to play billiards. Malcolm Stewart had driven into the village in the morning to be gone all day; his wife was busy writing to Kenneth, her youngest son, who was tramping it through Normandy with a couple of old classmates. Cary was curled up in the window seat in the library, absently watching McGuire, the gardener, rake the path.

"Is the book so absorbing?"

Cary turned suddenly and met Stewart’s laughing eyes.

"Why, I didn’t know you were there!"

"So it seems. I’ve been sitting here for the last quarter of an hour watching you—read!"

Cary flushed.

"It’s a stupid old story, anyway," she complained, tossing the book to him. "What have you been doing?"

"Offered to help Tom and Maggie with billiards, but they were so deuced ungrateful I left."

"You were a wise man," said Cary, and she laughed. Then she began to drum on the window. "If you could do anything you liked what would you do, just at this minute?"

Stewart twirled the book he held indifferently. "I’d kiss you," he thought, but aloud he said meekly, "I’ll watch you, please ma’am."

"Nonsense!" answered Cary, turning her head uneasily and looking out of the window at McGuire again.

She stifled a yawn.

"It’s a lazy day, isn’t it?"

"You’re sure it’s the day?"

"Of course! What a suggestion. Is it near lunch time?"

Stewart nodded.

"How about a walk afterwards," he said. "It’s clearing and the sun’s coming out. We might go to the Point and watch it set," he added quickly, seeing her waver.

Cary clapped her hands.

"Truly? You really mean it; you’ll take me to the Point at last?"

"You’ll go then?"

"Of course I’ll go! I’ll get on a short skirt this minute. See me run!"

She jumped down from the window seat like a delighted child.

Stewart caught at her hand as she passed and detained her.

"I haven’t the right to ask," he said quickly, looking up into her face with his grave Scotch eyes, "but were you thinking of Robert when I spoke to you?"

"Yes," said Cary, not looking at him. "I’ve been thinking of him all day."

Stewart let her hand drop suddenly, but Cary made no movement to be gone.

"I—I can’t just tell you why," she said, pressing her hand tightly over the one Stewart had held, and keeping her eyes fixed on a bust of Burns, "but I feel—somehow, and I suppose it’s foolish—we—we won’t see him again for a long time."

Stewart leaned forward, looking up again at her.

"I haven’t the right," he said, "and you needn’t answer me, but—_is_ it Robert, Cary?"

A long shaft of breaking sunlight came through the window and touched her shoulders and her hair. The quiet of the room was absolute. She still pressed the hand he had held with the other.

"It isn’t Robert," she said, and her voice was lower than its wont, and she did not meet Stewart’s eyes, "I—" and then she ran swiftly from the room.

She would not meet his eyes all during lunch, and she insisted on devoting herself to Cameron, much to Maggie’s inward amusement.

"There’s something in the air," Maggie confided to Cameron after lunch; "I just feel it pricking—like pins. It’s something to do with John and Cary. Now what _do_ you suppose it is?"

She laughed, meeting Cameron’s eyes.

"What _do_ you suppose it is!" he repeated banteringly. "I’m _sure_ I don’t know!"

"Johnny’s taking her to the Point this afternoon!"

Cameron sighed heavily.

"Well, that means ’good-bye’ to Johnny!"

Maggie wheeled around suddenly on him.

"What a way to talk!"

Cameron pulled her to him gently by the shoulders, until he could look down into her face.

"Perhaps—that is—will you go with me to the Point to-morrow, Maggie?" he asked.

"Is it not too late in the year to try the Point?" asked John’s mother anxiously, as he and Cary started out. "The days are shorter now, and then there is the tide, and the danger of a mist, you know!"

Stewart studied the skies critically.

"It seems straight enough, but, of course, if you’re going to worry, Little Madre—"

"Oh, of course not. I’m just foolish. Go along with you both," and she pushed them gently away from her with a laugh.

"We won’t stay long on the Point," Stewart said when they were well on their way. "It would be a nasty thing to be caught in a mist out there."

Cary pushed a small stone along with the toe of her walking boot, and was silent. Indeed she scarcely spoke all during the walk to the Point.

If he _had_ been at the Dargai Hill, she kept thinking, if—he—had!

She followed Stewart out to the extreme end of the peninsula, and she stood quietly listening as he pointed out to her, how in high tide the waters met across the narrow neck and isolated it from the mainland. Sometimes, he told her, the waters swept across the island so left, and he showed her where they had come up and left their mark upon the trunks of the trees.

And then the spell of her silence fell upon him and they stood quiet and motionless, looking out to sea.

They waited so, for the sun to sink slowly behind the distant line of the horizon, and they watched the big white clouds change and clothe themselves in the pink and purple of the coming sunset, like air nymphs getting ready for a ball. The quietness of the day’s death was on them. Once or twice they spoke.

"It reminds me of the Point, at home," said Cary once.

He smiled.

"I knew it would," he answered.

She sat down on a big rock at the end of the Point and looked up at the changing clouds. He walked a little way down to the water’s edge and then he came back slowly.

The vision of the Highlanders and the Dargai heights, that had haunted him since Trevelyan had gone, faded. There seemed to be nothing in the world that mattered except her sitting there on the big gray stone, with the water lapping at her feet, and the glow of the sunset on her face.

He watched her as she looked toward the sinking sun, and after it had disappeared he stole up behind her and stooped over her, calling her by name, softly, as though afraid the sea and pines would hear.

She looked up, and then her eyes went back quickly to the afterglow.

The incoming tide lapped softly against the rocks on the shore, and drew nearer. The pink and purple of the clouds changed to a delicate gray, that deepened as the moments passed; and from the sea there stole landward a thin white vapor, as exquisite as a bride’s veil, but growing thicker and thicker as it came nearer.

Stewart, following the direction of her eyes, straightened himself suddenly with the alertness that comes with the consciousness of danger.

"It’s the mist," he said, briefly. "Come."

He took her hand and held it, and when she would have drawn it away, he tightened his hold.

"You need my help," he said sharply. "We’ve got to get out of this just as quick as we can!"

The white vapor, grown thicker, crept up behind them, and Stewart changed their rapid pace into a run, but the mist caught up with them, and by and by surrounded them and hid the sea behind them and on either side, and the narrow neck in front. He urged her on over the two miles that lay between them and the mainland.

After awhile he felt her hold on his arm relax.

"I—can’t—go—so fast," she panted. "I—I—" and her voice trailed off and was lost in the heaviness of the mist.

He stopped and began to talk rapidly, and he rubbed her cold hands as he spoke.

"You must," he said sternly. "We can’t stop here. Don’t you know the sea may cover the peninsula, and that the tide is coming in, and is cutting off the neck?"

She nodded.

"I’ll try again, oh, I will try!"

She staggered on—blindly, clinging to him. He could feel the cold, tense pressure of her fingers, and it thrilled him. She could feel the strong touch of his hand, and it reassured her. Neither could see the face of the other.

And still the tide crept in on either side of the narrow peninsula. It was the only thing he was conscious of—except her presence and her danger.

If he could lead her from out of this mist! If he could save her! If he could reach the neck in time! His heart burnt within him, and cried out in passionate protest that he seemed so powerless—he who loved her so!

He drew her hand closer and he bent over her for a moment, his face near to her own. They could see each other’s faces so,—faintly.

"Dear," he whispered, and his heart was in his voice.

She clung to his hands, trembling.

If he would only tell her that he loved her, the waters might sweep over the narrow neck before they two reached it! But he did not speak again.

The land tapered off, leading to the neck, and he felt the ground grow moist beneath his feet. He went forward, keeping her at arm’s length, but afraid to let go her hand, lest he should lose her in the mist. He put down his foot and he could feel the water creeping up around his boot and filling it.

"The tide is covering the neck," he said briefly, stooping down and unfastening his boots, after which he stood upright, breathing deeply, to gather all his strength. Then he came closer to her and stooped and raised her in his arms and rose again, pressing forward.

She pressed her hands on his shoulders, and struggling, tried to push herself free.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked.

"Afraid of you!" and she laughed, but the laugh was swallowed up in the mist.

"Then you must let me carry you across."

"What do you think I am?" she asked fiercely. "Let you carry me with that wound in your back! I am as strong as you!"

She struggled again to free herself.

"Oh, no, you’re not," he cried gladly, "and you’ll be safer so!"

"What do I care for safety when your life is in danger? We’ll face it together. Let me down and you—you—I’ll let you lead me through—" her voice broke in a sob.

The silence of the years was broken by her sob. He let her slip down, holding her closely still, and then he drew her face to his, and kissed her.

"I love you," he whispered, "I love you," and he laid his cheek against her own, cold with the damp of the mist, and then he drew her nearer to the waters. "Come on, dear," he said brokenly.

They could feel the tide creeping around their feet, and it came up almost to the woman’s knees. Still she clung, struggling, panting, to his hand, as he led her into the deeper waters. Once she brought his hand that was leading her up to her face, and he felt her lips upon it.

"I love you," she said clearly, and the words pierced the mist, reaching him.

"Come on, dear," he said again, and still brokenly, leading her to where the tide ran swiftest.

The waters were up to her waist, and she was chilled and benumbed, and her clothes dragged on her, and she was weary with the weariness of death, but she did not know it. She still clung to his hand. And then as the waters grew deeper: