Hector flung the letter down on the boards beside him, and crushed it under his foot.
"Is it a sacrifice?" he jeered. "Oh no, no sacrifice at all; and you pretend to understand me, and think I'm a man to be satisfied with the life you propose. No; if I do it—and do it I must, I suppose—it will be hell for both of us. I'll probably kill you in the end, and myself too. That will be the finish of our heaven, Stara, a heaven green with absinth, most likely, that's the French remedy, I believe, for despair."
Once more he took up the letter, and studied the sentence erased. "'If not by then I shall know, and settle things in my own way,'" he repeated, and then his eyes darkened with anger. "A threat," he muttered, "to show me up, I suppose, write to the Colonel, like forsaken sweethearts do about their soldier-lovers. Do it then, by all means. God! but you make me laugh, Stara," and he laughed harshly at the thought.
"No, I'm wrong, though," he went on after a pause; "you don't mean that, I know, but what in the devil's name, then, do you mean? Nothing, I suppose, put it in to add emphasis, and scratched it out on reflection. Four o'clock, another half-hour of Thursday gone, and still no nearer solution. Well, I may as well get it over, as it's got to be, and, by heaven, yes, there's just one chance—they may not accept my papers now war's only a question of days. It's a toss-up, let Fate decide; if I'm to be great, nothing can stop me; if a derelict, then that I shall be whatever I do. I'll write that wire out now, and give it to Murphy to take when he calls me; it's light now, and the ghosts are gone."
He entered the room, grey and unreal-looking in the approaching dawn, and taking up a telegraph-form from the writing-table sat down and wrote: "Yes—Hector."
For a moment he sat staring at the words, with a peculiar smile on his face. "Good-bye, Hector Graeme, conqueror of worlds," he murmured. "Westminster Abbey is not for you, my friend; it's in Boulogne Cemetery your bones will rot, an example of what woman's love can do for a man."
Then a fit of despair came over him. He rose, and hurrying from the room, stood once more on the verandah, with his eyes fixed on the dark blur of mountains appearing dimly through the grey. "Come down, come down, you black devils yonder," he prayed; "begin your throat-cutting to-day, and I'll bless you for it. It's only a few hours I've got—for the love of God, come down!"
For a while he remained watching. Then suddenly a great drowsiness came over him: he swayed drunkenly, and, staggering back to his room, fell heavily on the bed and slept.
* * * * *
"Beggy pardin, sir, your tea, sir, you're for the field, sir. What time would you like the 'orse?"