“What! and leave you out here?” I cried. “No, indeed, I shall live at Bangalore until your time is up.”
“Now that is the very craziest nonsense; you must return to Torrington and marry Falkland.”
For the moment I failed to think of an appropriate answer. Why remind poor Ronnie that as the sister of a convict I could never be Brian’s wife, or presume to enter his proud and exclusive family?
“I do not wish to marry,” I muttered at last, and then hastily turned the subject by asking him if he wanted money.
“No, no,” he replied, “a paternal government provides everything, kit and all, and I start to-morrow under escort. It was decent of them to let you see me, and in my own clothes. Good-bye, dear old girl; you’ve been a real brick to me. Now I implore you to take your own line and not bother any more about your scamp of a brother. Do you remember when we sat on the bridge at Beke and had presentiments, and I swore that I was going to make the name of Lingard famous? I’ve jolly well done that!”
“Don’t say such things,” I burst out hysterically.
“I’ll behave like a lamb,” he continued, “and possibly receive some indulgence, but I’m bound to be the only officer and gentleman among a very queer crowd, and I hope the prison diet will put an end to me long before my term is out.”
At this moment a man whom I had never seen before entered and signalled that the time was up, and we embraced in silence. The next morning I was informed that my brother had been taken away by night, the authorities sparing him as much publicity as possible. Having ascertained that Ronnie had really departed, I proceeded to lay my own plans before Mrs. Lakin, who protested in long and eloquent speeches packed with objections; but my mind was made up, my decision immovable.
“Dearest, kindest Mrs. Lakin,” I said, “Ronnie and I are all in all to one another; where he goes I go.”
“What—to jail?”