The Wounded Name

by D. K. Broster

"Why? Not, I am sure, that you would not face it? You seem to me, if I may be allowed to judge from what you are doing now, to possess a very rare kind of courage. Why do you say that a court-martial is impossible?"

The flush was deeper this time. "You are much too generous," said Aymar with some difficulty. "For a moment, after the disaster, a court-martial did seem the only way out, and I gave up my sword for that purpose to my second-in-command. But since then the case has been . . . judged . . ." (his voice failed him entirely for a second) ". . . and besides, I have had time to reflect. A court-martial would involve telling the whole truth—my motive for sending you the information. It would be absurd and odious to invite an enquiry and then to conceal a vital fact. Yet if I tell the whole truth I do the thing I most want to avoid—bring that lady's name into the business, so that she cannot fail to learn just what I pray she may never learn. You see that, Colonel, surely?"

"Perfectly. But have you reflected that, by concealing your motive for doing what you did, you are laying yourself open to the imputation of its being a far more disgraceful one than it was?"

"I have reflected." His mouth set itself. "The imputation has already been made."

"And you are going on like that? What about other people's feelings? You have a right, perhaps, to immolate your own, but you have kindred, I expect?"

"I have not forgotten them," answered Aymar, and for a moment he looked out of the green-framed doorway into the sunshine beyond. "I should indeed be selfish if I refused any means, however nearly intolerable, if they would clear me. But it is just my . . . motive, which seems to me to render the case hopeless from the first. If I could go before a court-martial and relate a story of a plan that miscarried, I might hope to be believed and acquitted, even though . . . even though I have since been shot by my own men. But to admit that the scheme was directed to saving a woman's—a kinswoman's—life . . . how could I hope, after its disastrous failure, to obtain acquittal on those grounds?—Would you acquit me, Colonel Richard?"

The Imperialist was looking thoughtfully at the table, one thin sinewy hand supporting his head, the fingers of the other drumming lightly on the wood. "I don't know—I don't know. It is a difficult case. Dispassionately considered I suppose—but hardly any tribunal is really dispassionate. However, I do recognize that you are not condemning yourself to obloquy entirely for the sake of sparing someone else's feelings—which in the end would obviously be the last result you would achieve by such a course. . . . I have seen that done with such fatal results, Monsieur, that you must excuse my perhaps unwarrantable interference in your private affairs. I hope you will excuse it in any case?"

"Excuse it!" exclaimed Aymar rather hoarsely. "I have no words to thank you for your kindness! I shall never forget it. I . . ." For an instant he put a hand over his eyes, then, removing it, went on, "But I should like to ask you a question in my turn. How was it that in your first interview with my messenger, earlier on that evening, he gained from you the impression that the lady was in serious danger, an impression which was so much strengthened, immediately afterwards, by one of your subalterns . . . to my cost?"

Colonel Richard abruptly got up and began to walk up and down the narrow arbour.

"I would rather you asked me any question but that, Monsieur de la Rocheterie."