It was not until afterwards, when quietly and soberly he thought out their position and considered the question of their marriage, that he realised love was all in all to a woman, but to him, while he had his profession, it would only be part of his life. And that at present his life was not his own. Not only did it belong to his country, but he risked it almost daily. For that reason alone he felt he could not tie Marjorie down to a formal engagement.
Sir Reginald Crichton little knew the effect his letter, telling his son all about the altered cheque and Rupert Dale's arrest, would have on him. Had he guessed he might not have written it.
He asked him to break the news to poor old John Dale, to tell him that he, Sir Reginald, was seeing his son had the best legal advice that could be obtained, and to advise Dale to come up to London immediately.
It was with a heavy heart that Jim Crichton walked over to Blackthorn Farm early in the morning after he received Sir Reginald's letter. It was not an easy or a pleasant job to tell another man's father that his only son had been arrested on a criminal charge. He was rather annoyed with his father for not writing direct to Dale. For, after all, he could only blurt the news out in a way that might hurt more than if it had been conveyed by letter.
Youth must always be a little egotistical and a little selfish, and what troubled Jim most of all was the shock the news would give to the woman he loved—and the effect it might have on their love and their future life.
If Rupert Dale were guilty! Jim Crichton was a soldier, and so could not help being a little conventional and having more respect sometimes for the opinion of others than his own opinion. He had to consider what the world thought and said. He knew he would have to consider his own position as well as his father's. And he knew as he walked along the banks of the purling Dart in which Rupert and he had often fished together as boys, that before seeing Marjorie and telling her, he would have to make up his mind as to the position he would take up in this wretched affair—if her brother were found guilty. He knew it meant that the Dales would be ruined, probably financially as well as socially.
In the West country a social sin is never forgiven, never forgotten. They would have to leave Devonshire and go far away. And he might never see Marjorie again.
He halted, sat down on a giant boulder, and looked across the bleak moorland to Blackthorn Farm not a quarter of a mile away. At that moment he realised for the first time how deeply he loved Marjorie Dale.
Better than anyone else in the world; more than anyone else in the world. She even came before his profession.
It was with a shock he discovered this. But he had to confess it to himself.