Ronald started back as if struck. The significance of the tone in which the man spoke showed him that these were no random words, but a shaft deliberately aimed. In a moment he was cool again.
"If you do not return to the barracks at once," he said, sternly, "I will fetch a corporal's guard and put you in the cells."
The man hesitated a moment, and then muttering to himself, reeled off towards the barracks. Had the blow come a month before, Ronald Mervyn would have felt it more, for absorbed in his active work, on horseback the greater portion of his time, the remembrance of the past had become blunted, and the present had occupied all his thoughts. It was only occasionally that he had looked back to the days when he was Captain Mervyn, of the Borderers. But from the hour he had brought Mary Armstrong safely back to her father, the past had been constantly in his mind because it clashed with the present.
Before, Ronald Mervyn and Harry Blunt had almost seemed to be two existences, unconnected with each other; now, the fact of their identity had been constantly in his thoughts. The question he had been asking himself over and over again was whether there could be a permanent separation between them, whether he could hope to get rid of his connection with Ronald Mervyn, and to continue to the end of the chapter as Harry Blunt. He had told himself long before that he could not do so, that sooner or later he should certainly be recognised; and although he had tried to believe that he could pass through life without meeting any one familiar with his face, he had been obliged to admit that this was next to impossible.
Had he been merely a country gentleman, known only to the people within a limited range of distance, it would have been different; but an officer who has served ten years in the army has innumerable acquaintances. Every move he makes brings him in contact with men of other regiments, and his circle goes on constantly widening until it embraces no small portion of the officers of the army. Then every soldier who had passed through his regiment while he had been in it would know his face; and, go where he would, he knew that he would be running constant risks of detection. More than one of the regiments that had now arrived at King Williamstown had been quartered with him at one station or another, and there were a score of men who would recognise him instantly did he come among them in the dress of an officer. This unexpected recognition, therefore, by a trooper in his own corps, did not come upon him with so sudden a shock as it would have done a month previously.
"I knew it must come," he said to himself bitterly "and that it might come at any moment. Still it is a shock. Who is this man, I wonder? It seemed to me, when he first came up, that I had some faint remembrance of his face, though where, I have not the least idea. It was not in the regiment, for he knows nothing of drill or military habits. Of course, if he had been a deserter, he would have pretended ignorance, but one can always tell by little things whether a man has served, and I am sure that this fellow has not. I suppose he comes from somewhere down home.
"Well, it can't be helped. Fortunately, I have won a good name before this discovery is made, and am likely to reap the benefit of what doubt there may be. When a man shows that he has a fair amount of pluck, his comrades are slow to credit him with bad qualities. On the whole, perhaps it is well that it should have come on this evening of all when I had quite made up my mind as to my course, for it strengthens me in my decision as to what I ought to do. It is hard to throw away happiness, but this shows how rightly I decided. Nothing will shake me now. Poor little girl! it is hard for her, harder by far than for me. However, it is best that she should know it now, than learn it when too late."