"You see," he explained, "I am a soldier of the Legion--that is to say, I enlisted for five years' service in the French colonies. I could not get leave."
"Five years!" cried Warrisden. "You meant to stay five years away?"
"No," replied Stretton. "If things went well with me here, as up till to-day they have done, if, in a word, I did what I enlisted to do, I should have gone to work to buy myself out and get free. That can be done with a little influence and time-only time is the one thing I have not now. I must go home at once, since no harm has yet been done. Therefore I must desert. I am very sorry"--and again the wistfulness became very audible--"for, as I say, I have a good name; amongst both officers and men I have a good name. I should have liked very much to have left a good name behind me. Sergeant Ohlsen"--and as he uttered the name he smiled. "They speak well of Sergeant Ohlsen in the Legion, Warrisden; and to-morrow they will not. I am very sorry. I have good friends amongst both officers and men. I shall have lost them all to-morrow. I am sorry. There is only one thing of which I am glad to-day. I am glad that Captain Tavernay is dead."
Warrisden knew nothing at all of Captain Tavernay. Until this moment he had never heard his name. But Stretton was speaking with a simplicity so sincere, and so genuine a sorrow, that Warrisden could not but be deeply moved. He forgot the urgency of his summons; he ceased to think how greatly Stretton's immediate return would help his own fortunes. He cried out upon the impulse--
"Stay, then, until you can get free without----" And he stopped, keeping unspoken the word upon his lips.
"Without disgrace."
Stretton finished the sentence with a smile.
"Say it! Without disgrace. That was the word upon your tongue. I can't avoid disgrace. I have come to such a pass in my life's history that, one way or another, I can't avoid it. I thought just at the first moment that I could let things slide and stay. But there's dishonour in that course, too. Dishonour for myself, dishonour for my name, dishonour for others, too, whom it is my business--yes, my business--to keep from dishonour. That's the position--disgrace if I stay, disgrace if I go. It seems to me there's no rule of conduct which applies. I must judge for myself."
Stretton spoke with some anger in his voice, anger with those who had placed him in so cruel a position, anger, perhaps, in some measure, with himself. For in a little while he said--
"It is quite true that I am myself to blame, too. I want to be just. I was a fool not to have gone into the house the evening I was in London, after I had come back from the North Sea. Yes, I should have gone in then; and yet--I don't know. I had thought my course all out. I don't know."