"You flatter me," says Harry, and they marched him off.
CHAPTER XXVI
REVELATIONS
Harry was kept a long time in a guard room. Once or twice an officer came in and looked him over, but he was asked no questions, and he asked none. He was ill at ease. Not, I believe, from any fear for himself. He knew, indeed, that he might hang for his pains. What he had done for the Pretender was surely treason, or would be adjudged treason, with the Whigs in power and the Hanoverian King. But death seemed no great matter. He was not a romantic hero, he had no faith, no cause to die for, and he saw the last scene as a mere horror of pain and shame. Only it must be some relief to come to the end. For he was beset by a hopeless, reckless distrust of himself. Everything that he did must needs go awry. He was born for failure and ignominy. Memories of his wild delight in Alison came stabbing at his heart, and he fought against them, and again they opened the wounds. Yes, for a little while he had been given the full zest of life, all the wonder and the glory—that he might know what it was to live maimed and starving. It was his own fault, faith. He should never have dared venture for her, he, a dull, blundering, graceless fool. How should he content her? Oh, forget her, forget all that and have done. She would be free of him soon, and so best. Best for himself, too; it was a dreary affair, this struggling from failure to failure. Whatever he put his hand to must needs go awry. Save the Pretender from the chance of a fight and deliver him into the hands of Marlborough! Marlborough, who would send him to the scaffold with the noblest air in the world! Why, but for that silly meddling at Kensington, the lad might have won free. Now he and his cause must die together before a jeering mob. So much for the endeavours of Mr. Harry Boyce to be a man of honour! Mr. Harry Boyce should have stayed in his garret with his small beer and his rind of cheese. He was fit for nothing better, born to be a servitor, an usher. And he must needs claim Alison Lambourne for his desires and rifle her beauty! Oh, it was good to make an end of life if only he could forget her, forget her as she lay in his arms.
The door opened. The guard was beckoning to him. He was marched to a room in which one man sat at a table, a small man of a lean, sharp face. Unbidden, Harry flung himself into a chair. He must have been a ridiculous figure, overwhelmed by the black wig and the rich clothes too big for him. The sharp face opposite stared at him in contemptuous disgust.
"Your name?"
"La, you now!" Harry laughed. "I don't know you neither. And, egad, I can do without."
"I am the Earl of Sunderland."
"Then, damme, I am sorry for you."
"Your name, I say?"