“That is good hearing, so far as anything these days can be called good hearing. Suppose your lie had prospered, husband? Suppose Rupert had had to face a siege in earnest here? Oh, I’ve been blind, but now I—I understand the shame you would have put on him, when he was asked to hold the house and could not.”
“He could!” snapped Sir Jasper. “I’ve faith in the lad, I tell you. A Royd stands facing trouble always when the pinch comes.”
She looked at him wistfully, with a sense that he was years older than herself in steadiness, years younger in his virile grip on faith. It was an hour when danger and the coming separation made frank confession easy. “I share your Faith,” she said quietly, “but I’m not devout as you are. Oh, miracles—they happened once, but not to-day. This boy of ours—can you see him holding Windyhough against trained soldiery? Can you hear him sharp with the word of command?”
“Yes,” said the other, with the simplicity of trust. “If the need comes, he will be a Royd.”
“Dear, you cannot believe it! I, who long to, cannot. No leader ever found his way—suddenly—without preparation——”
“No miracle was ever wrought in that way,” he broke in, with the quiet impatience of one who knows the road behind, but not the road ahead. “There are no sudden happenings in this life—and I’ve trained the lad’s soul to leadership. I would God that I’d not lied to him to-night—I would that the siege could come in earnest.”
Rupert crept silently away, down the passage, and through the hall, and out into the night. Through all his troubles he had had one strength to lean upon—his father’s trust and comradeship. And now that was gone. He had heard Sir Jasper talk of the siege as of a dream-toy thrown to him to play with. In attack along the London road, or in defence at home, he was untrained, and laughable, and useless.
There was war in his blood as he paced up and down the courtyard. His one ally had deserted him, had shown him a tender pity that was worse to bear than ridicule. He stood alone, terribly alone, in a world that had no need of him.
The wind came chill and fretful from the moor, blowing a light drift of sleet before it; and out of the lonely land a sudden hope and strength reached out to him. It was in the breed of him, deep under his shyness and scholarly aloofness, this instinct to stand at his stiffest when all seemed lost. He would stay at home. He would forget that he had overheard his father’s confession of a lie, would get through each day as it came, looking always for an attack that, by some unexpected road, might reach the gates of Windyhough.
But there was another task he had—to forgive Sir Jasper for the make-believe—and this proved harder. Forgiveness is no easy matter to achieve; it cannot be feigned, or hurried, or find root in shallow soil; it comes by help of blood and tears, wayfaring together through the dark night of a man’s soul.