"Did he?" cried Brigadier Appleton. "On some points I am inclined to think that Luffe's views were not always sound. Certainly let the boy go to Eton and Oxford. A fine idea, your Highness. The training will widen his mind, enlarge his ideas, and all that sort of thing. I will myself urge upon the Government's advisers the wisdom of your Highness' proposal."
Moreover Dewes failed to carry Luffe's dying message to Calcutta. For on one point—a point of fact—Luffe was immediately proved wrong. Mir Ali, the Khan of Chiltistan, was retained upon his throne. Dewes turned the matter over in his slow mind. Wrong definitely, undeniably wrong on the point of fact, was it not likely that Luffe was wrong too on the point of theory? Dewes had six months furlong too, besides, and was anxious to go home. It would be a bore to travel to Bombay by way of Calcutta. "Let the boy go to Eton and Oxford!" he said. "Why not?" and the years answered him.
CHAPTER V
A MAGAZINE ARTICLE
The little war of Chiltistan was soon forgotten by the world. But it lived vividly enough in the memories of a few people to whom it had brought either suffering or fresh honours. But most of all it was remembered by Sybil Linforth, so that even after fourteen years a chance word, or a trivial coincidence, would bring back to her the horror and the misery of that time as freshly as if only a single day had intervened. Such a coincidence happened on this morning of August.
She was in the garden with her back to the Downs which rose high from close behind the house, and she was looking across the fields rich with orchards and yellow crops. She saw a small figure climb a stile and come towards the house along a footpath, increasing in stature as it approached. It was Colonel Dewes, and her thoughts went back to the day when first, with reluctant steps, he had walked along that path, carrying with him a battered silver watch and chain and a little black leather letter-case. Because of that memory she advanced slowly towards him now.
"I did not know that you were home," she said, as they shook hands. "When did you land?"
"Yesterday. I am home for good now. My time is up." Sybil Linforth looked quickly at his face and turned away.
"You are sorry?" she said gently.
"Yes. I don't feel old, you see. I feel as if I had many years' good work in me yet. But there! That's the trouble with the mediocre men. They are shelved before they are old. I am one of them."