"Can't feel, can't think, can't hate. That boy feels and thinks and hates—hates, I tell you, at this moment."
With which Parthian shot the Celebrated Actor vanished into the night.
"What on earth is the fellow driving at?" said the Soldier, peevishly.
But the answer to that question was apparently beyond the scope of the Eminent Divine, and in silence the two men listened to the scrunch of the Actor's footsteps on the gravel, growing fainter and fainter in the distance.
II
Half an hour later they were still sitting at the table. The Actor had not returned: there had been no further sign of Hugh, and the inaction was getting on the Soldier's nerves. Twice had he risen and gone to the window: twice had he taken a few steps into the darkness outside, only to return and hover undecidedly by the fireplace.
"I feel I ought to go and look for the boy," he remarked for the twentieth time. "Trayne's such an ass."
And for the twentieth time the Bishop counselled patience.
"In some ways he is," he agreed: "in others he's very shrewd. He's got more imagination, General, than both of us put together, and real imagination is akin to genius. Leave him alone: he can't do any harm."
With a non-committal grunt, the Soldier sat down, only to rise again immediately as a tall, slight girl in white came in through the open window. There was a misty look in her eyes, and her lips were faintly tremulous, but she came straight up to the General and put a hand on his arm. The other hand, with a piece of paper clutched in it, she held behind her back.