"Then I'll talk to you."
"Oh, you mustn't!" She looked up startled, "Sir Archibald said you were not to exert yourself."
"Confound the old codger, anyway! Does he expect to keep me tongue-tied the rest of my life?"
Cary laughed.
"You're cross to-day," she said. "You're getting better. It's a sure sign."
Stewart leaned forward suddenly; then he leaned back and traced an outline of a sword on the leather arm of the chair.
"Did you know," he asked her slowly, "that as far as the Service is concerned, I'm done for—that I'll never be well enough for it again; that I've been injured beyond hope for the Service; that I've had to resign?"
"Yes," said Cary gently, looking hard at the book in her lap.
"Thirty and—done for," he said bitterly, "All the Woolwich years to count for nothing; all the study; all the ambition, all the—hope, to count for nothing!" His finger paused in tracing the outline of the sword.
"Oh, you mustn't say that," cried Cary, "you must remember what you've done already—more than many older officers do in their whole lives. And then—"