I boiled with anger against her, and should have liked to send some of my emotions over the telegraph wire, but that would have been a childish way to strike. Besides, I knew in my heart that I was a little unjust. Di had treated Eagle shamefully, there was no doubt of that. But there was one thing in her favour: she was not conscious of betraying Eagle March in the hour of danger, for she knew about him only what the papers said: that he had been wounded in an accident. It was Major Vandyke's great exploit which had weighed down the scales in his favour, or influenced Diana, anyhow, to throw Eagle over definitely, and announce her engagement to the "hero." I telegraphed back, "Don't make it public till you've heard from me. You may change your mind." I followed the wire with a letter, in which I assured Di that Major Vandyke had committed a crime against Eagle March. Perhaps it would be found out, and then she would be very sorry that she had promised to marry such a man. I dared not hope much from my protest, however; so, two days later, I wasn't surprised to hear that Di was disgusted as well as hurt by my "wicked prejudice against Sidney." "You never liked him," she said, "but I didn't think you would go so far as to accuse him of crimes. If it weren't so silly, it would be horrible. As it is, I can't help laughing; but all the same, be careful what you say to other people. If you speak against Sidney to strangers, you can't do him any harm, but you will do yourself a great deal, and Captain March, too. Sidney has written me a long letter telling me the whole history of that Thursday night. It has just come. Of course, I can repeat to nobody what he wrote. It was strictly confidential, though I suppose the truth is bound to leak out, more or less, in future. Judging from your hints, I suppose you, too, have heard something—probably from Tony Dalziel (whom I hope, by the way, you are treating better than you did, as you're never likely to get another such chance). Naturally you believe the other side. But after the court-martial there won't be any 'other side.'"
There was just one consolation in the next few days: a letter that came to me from Eagle. He said not a word that any one mightn't have read, and told me nothing about himself, except that he was "getting along very well" and I mustn't spend a sad minute over him. But he added: "Your thought of me, and your unfailing friendship, are more to me than I can express. I feel that nothing can rob me of them, and now and always they will be for me like a comforting fire, at which I can warm myself when days are cold and dark. I count on you, my little Peggy girl, and I know I shan't count in vain, even though I have to say that it's impossible for us to meet now, or for some time to come. Write to me when you feel like it. I shall be more than glad of your letters."
If I had written when I felt like it, I should seldom have had a pen out of my hand; yet it was hard to write. There was so little I dared, so much I wished, to say. And I couldn't mention Diana. I wondered whether she had broken to him in a letter the news of her engagement, or whether she had left it for him to discover by accident. I felt that he ought to be told, but I couldn't bear to be the one to deal the blow, so I hedged when I wrote to him next, asking, "Have you heard from D... lately?"
He answered the question briefly by the next post "Yes, I heard from her on Saturday." That was all. No comment, no word as to his feelings. But he had let me see how he loved her. He could not help knowing that I would understand what losing her meant to him—and losing her to Major Vandyke, at such a time and in such a way. Looking back at events, I calculated that the blow had fallen on Eagle before he answered my letter, and this gave a more pathetic meaning to the lines which I intended always to keep.
Except for the knowledge that, powerless as I was, he valued me, there was no brightness in my days. Major Vandyke did have the effrontery to come and see me, as Di had thought he would, and I had thought he wouldn't. He took me at a disadvantage by walking up to me in the hall of the hotel, where I stood reading a note from Tony. Warned by a flash of my eyes as I looked up at the sound of his voice, saying, "How do you do?" he went on hastily: "Don't let's have a scene, please, for Diana's sake, if not for your own. I know how you feel, so you needn't go to the length of telling me, or even cutting me, before people. If I hadn't been sure you were too much of a little lady to make yourself conspicuous in public, in spite of your feelings, I shouldn't have risked surprising you like this. I was pretty sure if I didn't catch you unawares you would refuse to see me. So I had to take some risk, for I particularly want to speak to you."
"I don't share your desire," I said stiffly. "You were perfectly right in thinking I shouldn't have seen you if you had given me the chance to refuse. It's like you, not to have given it. But you're right, too, when you take it for granted that I won't make a scene. If it could do the the slightest good, though, to any one concerned, I would!"
He smiled, a pale, unpleasant smile. "No doubt. You'd be capable of anything. Here's the situation: I'm going to marry your sister, and though you've tried your best to stop me, you can't."
"I wonder any man, even you, should want Diana after the way she's behaved," I said sullenly.
"Thanks for that expressive 'even.' Your weapons are pretty sharp, little lady! But you're a child, and you're Diana's sister, so I bear no malice. I'm the sort of man, it happens, who doesn't stop to bother much about the way a very beautiful girl 'behaves' to another fellow. I love Diana, and I'd take her across that other fellow's dead body if she'd just stabbed him."
"She has stabbed Captain March, though not mortally, I hope," said I. "But she has behaved as badly to you as to him, in a way."