Better, and best! As if anything could make any difference now! "You are very kind," she said in dull recognition of his care.
Philip Marsden never forgot that drive; the memory of it remained with him for years as a kind of nightmare. The girl in her white dress and sailor hat as he had seen her at many a tennis-party; the great bank of clouds on the horizon telling of welcome rain; the little squirrels leaping across the white road; the cattle returning homewards amid clouds of dust; the stolid stare of the natives as they passed by. It was almost a relief to stand side by side before an open grave listening to an even, disciplined tramp audible above the muffled drums coming nearer and nearer.
A dingy brick wall bleached to mud-colour shut out all view, but high up in the sky, above the fringe of grey tamarisk trees, a procession of flame-edged clouds told that, out in the west, Nature was celebrating the obsequies of day in glorious apparel. Suddenly The Dead March struck up, loud and full, bringing to Philip Marsden's memory many a sword-decked coffin and riderless charger behind which he had walked, wondering if his turn would come next. The music ceased with a clash of arms at the gate; and after a low-toned order or two the procession appeared in narrow file up the central path. The white uniforms looked ghostly in the deepening shadows; but through a break in the trees a last sunbeam slanted over the wall, making the spikes on the officers' helmets glow like stars.
Belle's clasped yet listless fingers tightened nervously as the Brigade-Major's voice rose and fell in monotonous cadence about "our dear brother departed." It seemed to her like a dream; or rather as if she too were dead and had no tears, no grief, nothing but a great numbness at her heart. Then some one put a clumsily-made cross of white flowers into her hands, bidding her lay it on the coffin, bared now of the protecting flag; and she obeyed, wondering the while why other people should have thought of these things when she had not, and thinking how crooked it was, and how much better she could have made it herself. Perhaps; for the hands that twined it were not used to such woman's work. It was Philip Marsden's task, also, to throw the first handful of earth into the grave, and draw Belle's arm within his own before the salutes rang out. They startled the screaming parrots from their roost among the trees, and sent them wheeling and flashing like jewels against the dark purple clouds.
"Was it never going to end?" she thought wearily as they waited again, and yet again, for the rattle of the rifles. Yet she stood heedlessly silent, even when the band struck into quick time and the cheerful echo of the men's answering footsteps died away into the distance.
"Take her home," said the doctor, who with John Raby had remained to see the grave properly filled in. "I'll call round by and by with a sleeping draught; that will do her more good than anything."
As they drove back she complained, quite fretfully, of the cold, and her companion reined in the horse while he wrapped his military coat round her, fastening it beneath her soft dimpled chin with hands that trembled a little. She seemed to him inexpressibly pitiful in her grief, and his heart ached for her.
"It is going to rain, I think," she said suddenly, with her eyes fixed on the dull red glow barred by heavy storm clouds in the west; adding in a lower tone, "Father will get wet!"
Major Marsden looked at her anxiously and drove faster, frightened at the dull despair of her tone. He had meant to say good-bye at the door, but he could not. How could he leave her to that unutterable loneliness? And yet what good could he do beyond beguiling her to take a few mouthfuls of food? Poor Healy's Mary Ann proved helpless before a form of grief to which she was utterly unaccustomed, and as her presence seemed to do more harm than good Philip Marsden sent her into the next room, where she nursed her boy and wept profusely. He sat talking to Belle till long after the mess-hour, and then, when he did turn to go, the sight of her seated alone, tearless and miserable in the big, empty room was too much for his soft heart. He came back hastily, bending over her, then kneeling to look in her downcast face, and take her cold little hands into his warm ones and say kind words that came from his very heart. Perhaps they brought conviction, perhaps the touch of his hand assured her of sympathy, for suddenly her dull despair gave way; she laid her head on his shoulder and cried pitifully, as children cry themselves to sleep.
With the clasp of his fingers on hers and his breath stirring her soft curly hair, Philip Marsden's heart beat fast and his pulses thrilled. His own emotion startled and perplexed him; he shrank from it, and yet he welcomed it. Did he love her? Was this the meaning of it all?