“Pray then that it may not be your lot to suffer them some day,” he said, in the same stern voice.
It frightened her, and she plunged into a new subject, asking:
“Have you heard that things have gone very badly for you? First, Lord Devene has an heir, a strong and healthy boy, so you will not succeed.”
“I am heartily glad to hear it,” he said, “may the child live and prosper.”
She stared at this amazing man, but finding nothing to say upon the point that would sound decent, went on:
“Then you are almost disgraced, or rather your memory is. They say that you caused your mission to fail by mixing yourself up with women.”
“I read it in the papers,” he replied, “and it will not be necessary for me to assure you that it is a falsehood. I admit, however, that I made a mistake in giving escort to those two women, partly because they were in difficulties and implored my help, and partly because there are generally some women in such a caravan as mine pretended to be, and I believed that their presence would make it look more like the true thing. Also, I am of opinion that the sheik Ibrahim, who had an old grudge against me, would have attacked me whether the women were there or not. However this may be, my hands are clean,” (it was the second time this day that Edith had heard those words, and she shivered at them), “I have done my duty like an honest man as best I could, and if I am called upon to suffer in body or in mind,” and he glanced at his empty trouser-leg, “as I am, well, it is God’s will, and I must bear it.”
“How can you bear it?” she asked, almost fiercely. “To be mutilated; to be made horrible to look at; to have your character as an officer ruined; to know that your career is utterly at an end; to be beggared, and to see your prospects destroyed by the birth of this brat—oh, how can you bear all these things? They drive me mad.”
“We have still each other,” he answered sadly.
She turned on him with a desperate gesture. She had never loved him, had always shrunk from him; and now—the kiss of another man still tingling upon her lips—oh! she loathed him—this one-eyed, hideous creature who had nothing left to give her but a tarnished name. She could never be his wife, it would kill her—and then the shame of it all, the triumph of the women who had been jealous of her beauty and her luck in marrying the distinguished heir of Lord Devene. She could not face it, and she must make that clear at once.