“I know Captain Alexander Keith,” said Rachel, slowly; “but you must be mistaken, I am certain I should know if he had a Victoria Cross.”
“It is very odd; Charlie told me it was the same,” said Miss Grey, who, like all others, was forced to bend to Rachel’s decisive manner.
“Scottish names are very common,” said Rachel, and at that moment a partner came and carried Emily off.
But as Rachel stood still, an odd misgiving seized her, a certain doubt whether upon the tall lazy figure that was leaning against a wall nearly opposite to her, talking to another officer, she did not see something suspiciously bronze and eight-pointed that all did not wear. There was clearly a medal, though with fewer clasps than some owned; but what else was there? She thought of the lecture on heroism she had given to him, and felt hot all over. Behold, he was skirting the line of chaperons, and making his way towards their party. The thing grew more visible, and she felt more disconcerted than ever had been her lot before; but escape there was none, here he was shaking hands.
“You don’t polk?” he said to her. “In fact, you regard all this as a delusion of weak minds. Then, will you come and have some tea?”
Rachel took his arm, still bewildered, and when standing before him with the tea-cup in her hand, she interrupted something he was saying, she knew not what, with, “That is not the Victoria Cross?”
“Then it is, like all the rest, a delusion,” he answered, in his usual impassive manner.
“And gained,” she continued, “by saving the lives of all those officers, the very thing I told you about!”
“You told me that man was killed.”
“Then it was not you!”