"You're confoundedly sure of things," he said brutally. "You know her so well. Why don't you marry her?"
"I asked her to marry me two months ago," was the answer. Meredith's hands were clasped on the table in an attitude which, but for his level voice and composed features, would have suggested an almost intolerable suffering. "She wouldn't have me, Tristram."
"I don't wonder," with a rough laugh. "What woman would care to share your life or mine?"
"You don't understand—it wasn't that. She'd be glad and proud to go into the desert with the man she loved. I wasn't the man. That's all." He was breathing thickly, and suddenly he got up with a gesture that even then Tristram recognized as poignant. "My God, man, why don't you go in and win?" he burst out.
They stared at each other through a long minute of silence. The pipe slipped from Tristram's hand and fell with a crack on the hard floor. He bent down and picked it up. The stem was broken. He tried to piece it together with a sightless persistency.
"Are you—you trying to be damned funny?" he stammered.
"Do you think I should make a jest of a thing like that?" was the fierce retort. "What I've done would be the action of a cad if you weren't the man I know you to be. It hasn't been easy—you can guess that. But I wasn't going to see Anne's happiness break up or want of a little sincerity. I believed you cared. I've been watching you. I was almost certain tonight. I understood your principles—you wouldn't ask a woman to share your life—but I know what Anne feels—she'd stick by you, Tristram——" He faltered, the thread of his argument lost in a sudden ugly sense of uncertainty. He saw Tristram's face in the shadow, and its sheer expressionlessness frightened him. "I suppose I've behaved like a fool," he said. "A man who cares as I do is liable to become obsessed with an idea. Forget it——"
Tristram started a little, as though awakening from a deep mental abstraction. He came and stood at Meredith's side, laying the fragments of the old pipe on the table with a mechanical care.
"That's the only foolish thing you've said," he remarked, gently. "I don't believe any one ever forgets anything. It's just a sort of comfortable phrase— You did quite right—you clergymen have a kind of insight into things—you—you see where the shoe pinches—don't worry—I'm awfully grateful. Even now, I see what a fine thing you've done—I shall realize it much better later on. You've lived up to your faith—you've made me respect it. It's a case of the old Pagan and the early Christian. No, I'm not jeering. I'm in deadly earnest. There, turn in and go to sleep. I shan't want my bunk tonight. I've got to think things out—get clear with myself. So many things have been sprung on me—I've got to be alone. But don't worry. You've done the right thing. Good night."
He held out his hand, and now it was quite steady. Meredith took it and wondered at the strength of it. In the dull, bitter reaction from sacrifice, he visualized the fervour of Tristram's happiness.