“The man is a Hindoo,” he said. “What consolation can he offer George in the hour of his death, when his eyes should rest on a tender, loving face—when his dying hands should grasp the hands of a friend? My poor brave boy! How could I ever consent to his going out to India? All his bright, military genius, all his longings to distinguish himself in the army, must end in an early Indian grave! But he shall not die with not one of his kindred beside him. We must go to him, Octavia. We shall reach him in time.”
Sir Harold seized upon his unopened Times, and glanced over the advertisements.
“A steamer sails from Marseilles two days hence,” he announced. “We must be off to-day, immediately, to catch it. I will have a bag packed at once. Order your maid to pack your trunks, Octavia—”
He paused, not comprehending the surprised stare in her ladyship’s bold black eyes.
“You seem to be laboring under a mistake Sir Harold,” said Lady Wynde, coolly. “If you choose to go out to India, you can do so. George is your son and heir, and I suppose it would really look better if you were to go. But as to my hurrying by sea and land, by day and night, to witness the death of a young man I never saw, the idea is simply preposterous. My health could never endure the strain of such a fatigue. You would have two graves to make instead of one.”
The lines in Sir Harold’s face contracted as in a sudden spasm.
“I—I was selfish to think of your going, Octavia,” he said sorrowfully. “It is true that we should have to travel day and night to reach Marseilles in time to catch the steamer. The passage of the Red Sea would also be hard for you. But I was thinking of my poor brave boy dying there among strangers, with no woman beside him. If—if you could have gone to him, my wife, and let him feel that he was going from one mother here to another mother there—”
“I should like to go, if only my health would permit,” sighed Lady Wynde. “But why do you not take your daughter with you?”
The father shook his head.
“She is so young,” he said. “She is so fond of poor George. I cannot cast so heavy a shadow over her future life as that visit to her brother’s death-bed would be. No, Octavia, I will go alone.”