The wedding took place at St. George's, Hanover Square. It was the first brilliant wedding of the season and royalty honored it, not by sending a deputy, but by its personal presence. Diana passed through the gay pageant and heard the conventional words of well-wishers like one in a dream. She remembered being changed into a going-away frock—the curious street crowd gathering around her as she left the reception at the Park Lane house. Then as she entered the brougham she was conscious of Henry's face drawn close to hers, and the old frightened instincts that her father only a week ago had soothed and quelled again took possession of her. A great wall of fear closed in about her.
At last the carriage reached the station.
Diana leaned back in their compartment in the train northbound for Scotland. The bustle of the outgoing crowds was holding Henry's attention as she glanced over the afternoon paper, which gave a prominent position to the brilliant wedding that had taken place at St. George's only a few hours ago.
Suddenly she espied a name that made her heart leap. A brief paragraph told of the reward to be conferred on Captain James Wynnegate, but a longer account followed, giving details of his gallant work in the Northwestern Hills.
A great longing to see the friend of her childhood came over her. She was ashamed that she had forgotten him so long.
Henry entered the compartment, the guard closed the door, and the train started on its journey. Her husband spoke to her and she answered him in an absent manner. The sudden remembrance of her old playmate grew vividly and seemed to blot out all else, as, following on her self-reproach for forgetting him, came the thought, growing more poignant; "Did Jim remember her?"
CHAPTER IV
Jim lay in the hospital ward convalescing. Of the march back to the nearest hospital post, after the fight which has taken place three months before in the Northwestern Hills, when his name had been flashed over Europe in praise of his magnificent service to his flag, his mind held no memory.
Night after night in his delirium he lived again through the scenes of the fight that had brought glory to his name. Now it was the evening before the battle, when, acting upon information brought by the spy Rham-shi, he and his men kept their long vigil, sitting silently in their saddles the entire night awaiting the onslaught of the fanatical natives across the hill. Again it was early dawn, and in his fever-tossed dreams he heard the roar of the voices as the assault began; again he climbed to the summit of the hill and saw the dreaded gun of the enemy that was riddling his men. On—on he mounted. He felt the warm blood ooze down his body, the mists swim before his eyes, and the stinging pain pierce his side. In despair that he might not reach the monster in time to prevent it from completing its deadly work, his cry of agony often rang out in the silent room.
"Oh, God, God, my men—my splendid men—give me courage!"