"I'm coming with you as far as the boat, Leonard, just as far as the boat. See, those women are going. Oh, let me, Leonard!"
He hesitated, and in that empty moment a voice behind them said, "The average life of an officer in the Dardanelles is eleven days."
Leonard frowned; then glared at the hunchback, who was still peering at them.
"O Leonard, please, please!"
"You couldn't come back with them," he said painfully, averting his eyes from hers.
"Eleven days!" repeated an incredulous voice.
"I will come—I will come!" gasped Marjorie, trying to squeeze past Leonard through the gates.
He pushed her back peremptorily. His boyish face was pitiful in its determination.
"You go back," he said. He beckoned to a young officer who was standing in the crowd. "Stuart," he said, "will you see my wife to her carriage? She doesn't feel well. I'm going."
The soldier advanced. Marjorie glared at him with the eyes of an animal who sees her young taken away from her, and he drew back, his face full of pity. She threw one last despairing look at Leonard as he turned down the platform, and in that last glimpse of his strangely numb face she saw how he was suffering. She had a revulsion of feeling; a sense of desolate shame swept over her which, for a moment, surmounted her terror.