"You mean?..." questioningly.
"Heroics and martyrdom," she snapped, and flung out of the room, leaving him perplexed and grave.
"If I thought so," he said in his heart, "if I were sure of it, I would forbid the banns myself."
He moved to the window, and stood for a long time looking silently and sadly to the far blue hills. He was thinking that, though he had given his life almost to be all in all to Meryl since she was left motherless, there was one part now he could not play.
"A mother would have seen through anything and known what to do," he finished, and sighed heavily.
XXIII
CAREW'S STORY
The news reached Carew through a newspaper. He was back in Salisbury now, attending the renewed sitting of the Commission, giving invaluable assistance. Whatever he said was instantly listened to. The chief members of the Commission, men of note and weight, wondered a little over this distinguished-looking man, merely a soldier-policeman, who knew such an extraordinary amount about the black races in Rhodesia; but if they sought enlightenment they were disappointed. No one knew anything about Major Carew, except that he was once in the Blues and now in the British South Africa police, and that the natives were more or less his hobby.
But there was one morning when he was more silent than usual; when he seemed a little distrait and very difficult to approach. And the moment the sitting was over he declined, somewhat curtly, an invitation to dinner that evening, and rode out across the veldt alone. That was the morning the daily newspaper contained the news that the only child of Henry Pym, the well-known millionaire, was engaged to be married to Mr. William van Hert, the eminent politician.