“You’re beyond me, sir; but then, men always were. They never seem to rest; and when the wind blows keenest, they run out into it, as if it were warmer than the fireside.”
“And there the secret’s out. That was King Charles’s meaning when he bade all Christian royalists remember. It was your son who explained it all to me just now.”
“Ah, Rupert! The poor boy dreams too much. You’re indulgent, Mr. Oliphant.”
They fell silent, as people do when feeling throbs and stirs about them like thunder that is brewing up, but will not break. And Oliphant, out of this thunder-weather that he knew by heart, found sudden intuition. Sir Jasper’s wife had not followed him to learn what the last message meant of a King dead these hundred years; she had sought cover, as women do when they are harassed, had waited till she found courage to ask the question that was nearest to her heart.
“You’re thinking of your husband, Lady Royd?” he said, with blunt assurance. “I shall see him soon, if all goes well, and I shall tell him—what?”
Women undoubtedly are as Heaven made them, a mystery past man’s understanding. Lady Royd, deep in her trouble, chose this moment to remember how Sir Jasper had wooed her as a girl—chose to grow younger on the sudden, to carry that air of buoyancy and happiness which makes the tired world welcome all daft lovers. “You’ve read my heart, sir, in some odd way. My husband—I cannot tell you what he means to me. I was not bred to soldiery. I—I hated the sword he carried out with him, because sharp steel has always been a nightmare to me, and he was cruel when he bade me buckle it on for him.”
“As God sees us, he was kind,” broke in Oliphant, moved by extreme pity for this spoiled wife who had fallen on evil days. “He loves you. The summons came. It was for your sake—yours, do you not understand?—that he kept faith with the Prince.”
“For my sake—he could have stayed at home. I—I needed him. I told him so.”
Oliphant was so tired that even compassion could not soften the rough edge of his temper. “And if he’d stayed? You would have liked your tame cat about the house? You’d have fussed over him and petted him—but you’d never in this life have found the medicine to cure his shame.”
“Oh, there!” said the other fretfully. “You worship honour. It is always honour with you men who need excuse for riding far away from home.”