Trevelyan still sat in the shadows cast by the curtains. He was massing all his courage and his strength against his love.
"Cary!" She raised her head from her arms, and she shivered at the tone of his voice, without knowing why. "Cary, if you'll come over here—I'll tell you why—" he broke off.
She obeyed him mechanically.
"Sit down."
She did as he bade her.
"Shall I light the lamp?" she faltered. "The days are short and—and it's dark—"
"No, not yet. Sit here where I can see your face by the fire. There! Like that!"
And then he began on the cause and the details of the native trouble. She moved restlessly. She did not understand the technicalities very well, and the odd dread and oppression would not lift. She was conscious that Trevelyan's voice filled the room, but she scarcely heeded his words. And then he told her of Stewart and something of what Stewart had tried to do for him, and grew eloquent over it, and she forgot herself and the dread in listening to him. Even on the day of the storm in Scotland, when he had told her the stories of his childhood, he had not been as eloquent as this. Then he halted. After a while he resumed. He did not pause again, but went on rapidly with the old resoluteness born afresh, now that he had once begun. He continued steadily, mercilessly, leading up to the heart of it as he would have aimed at and hit the bull's eye at target practice with an unerring hand.
"And the Colonel ordered me to make the survey. It meant danger and probable death, and—I was afraid. I shot myself to prevent going. I lied about it. I said the revolver had gone off. He sent John."
He leaned forward, grim with the grimness of despair, and the moisture came out on his face and his throbbing throat, but she did not see his face, she only heard the words that fell heavily on the silence.