"Nothing. Merely go along as you've been doing. Just be friendly. And don't be hard on him. He's had a bad time. I've always felt that there was something troubling him. Now I know; and I'm not going to let him ruin himself and throw away his happiness for a woman who's not worth it. He's the nicest, cleanest-minded man I've known after Kevin and my brother. He saved my babies, and for that I'd do anything for him. I feel almost as if he were one of my children; and I'll stand by him if you won't."
"Oh, but I will, I will," cried the girl. "But how can I help him?"
"As I said, by acting as if nothing had happened and just keeping on being friends. It oughtn't to be hard. See how he's suffering and think how brave he's been. Remember, he loves you; and you do care for him, don't you? I've an idea that he hopes that this woman is tiring of him and may set him free. Of course he didn't say as much, but——." She nodded sagely. Her intuition had told her more of his feelings in a minute than Frank had dared to acknowledge to himself in many months. "Anything I can do to help to bring that about I will."
The days went by; and Wargrave, aided by his clean living, the devoted nursing that he received, and the cool, healthy mountain air, began to mend. Major Hunt had recovered and returned to duty, relieving the officer sent from Headquarters to command during his illness. Colonel Dermot had come back from Simla with Frank's appointment to the Political Department as his assistant in his pocket. The murdered man had long ago been laid to rest by his comrades; but his slayer still sat fettered in the one cell of the Fort awaiting the assembling of the General Court Martial for his trial, and seeing from his barred window the even routine of the life that had been his for three years still going on, but with no place in it for him.
The period of Wargrave's convalescence was a very happy time for him. Muriel had remained a whole month after the eventful night; for Mrs. Dermot declared that, with the care of her house and children, she had no time to nurse the subaltern, and the girl must stay to do it while he was in any danger. So she lingered in the station to do him willing service, wait on him, chat or read to him, give him her arm when he was first allowed to leave his room, and did it all with the bright, cheerful kindness of a friend, no more. She never alluded to his words to her; but her patient somehow guessed that she had not been angered by the revelation of the state of his feelings towards her. And from the tenderness of her manner to him, the unconscious jealousy that she displayed if anyone but she did any service for him, he began to half hope, half fear, that she cared a little for him in return. But even as he thought this he realised that he must not allow her to do so.
At last the time came when she had to return to her father down in the vast forest; and bravely as she said goodbye to everyone—and most of all to Frank—the tears blinded her as she sat on the back of the elephant that bore her away and saw the hills close in and shut from her gaze the little station that held her heart.
Wargrave, however, was not left to pine in loneliness after her departure. All day long, if they were allowed, the children stayed with him, Eileen smothering him with caresses at regular intervals. They told him their doings, confided their dearest secrets to him and demanded stories. And "Fwankie" racked his brains to recall the fairy tales of his own childhood to repeat to the golden-haired mites perched on his bed and gazing at him in awed fascination, the girl uttering little shrieks at all the harrowing details of the wicked deeds of Giant Blunderbore and the cruel deceit of the wolf that devoured Red Ridinghood.
But the subaltern, had a grimmer visitor one day. The orders came at last for Gul Mahommed to be sent to Calcutta to stand his trial without waiting for Wargrave's recovery, the latter's evidence being taken on commission. The prisoner begged that he might be allowed to see the wounded officer before he left; and, Frank having consented, he was brought to the subaltern's bedroom when he was marched out of the Fort on the first stage of his journey to the gallows.
It was a dramatic scene. The stalwart young Pathan in uniform with his wrists handcuffed stood with all the bold bearing of his race by the bedside of the man that he had tried to kill, while two powerful sepoys armed with drawn bayonets hemmed him in, their hands on his shoulders.
The prisoner looked for a moment at the pale face of the wounded man, then his bold eyes suffused with tears as he said: