He sank down on the edge of his berth with so sad and dejected a look that I rose and went to him.
“Pray forgive me,” I said. “I did not know.”
He looked up at me with his face drawn and old.
“Thank you,” he said, taking my hand. “There is nothing to forgive, my lad. You may as well know, though. Brother-officers ought to be brotherly, even if they are a little strange. It was a case of illness. I took some one home—to save her life, and—”
He was silent for some moments, and I could feel his hand tremble as he pressed mine very hard, and seemed to be making a desperate effort to be calm, and master the emotion which evidently thrilled him.
“God knows best,” I heard him whisper, hardly above his breath. And then aloud, “I am going back to my duties, you see—alone.”
The painful silence which followed was broken by the sound of a bell, and he started up quite a changed man.
“There!” he said, in a strange tone, “soldiers have no time for sorrow. It is the dead march, Vincent. Then a volley over the grave, and a march back to quarters to a lively quick-step. Come, brother-officer, we are abreast of Gravesend: as far as we shall go to-night, and there’s the dinner-bell. Right shoulder forward. March!”
“No,” I said to myself. “I am sorry for him, but he is too strange. I shall never like Captain Brace.”