"I'm awfully glad you believe in me," he said, "I'm awfully glad for that 'some day' you think of. Shall I tell you about a 'some day,' too?"
She nodded in silence.
"Well, then, 'some day' you'll marry just like all the girls do, but you'll marry some out of sight fellow—" he broke off, and retraced his steps to the house, adjusting his military walk to her slower one.
She pulled at the edge of her shawl. She was thinking if it had not been for Trevelyan, Stewart would have been at the Dargai Hill.
She bent her head as she entered the strip of wood, and the twigs felt out caressingly and touched her dress as she passed. The breath of the one red rose on her bosom came up to her like the voice of love, and over her white face there stole the faintest color of the rose, and she breathed quicker, remembering the music of the flute.
Stewart turned from the long window. He could see them emerging from the darkness of the wood into the moon-lit open. Trevelyan had spoken to him of Cary but what if Cary cared for Trevelyan after all! And he laid the silent flute away.
X.
At midnight Trevelyan stumbled blindly into the railway carriage, without a backward glance at Stewart, who had insisted on taking the long, dark drive to the station to see him off. Once in the darkness Trevelyan had put his hand heavily on Stewart's knee, and leaned back and stared into the blackness ahead. All that Stewart had ever been to him—all that they had ever been to each other, swept across him.
Out there with the plague and Mackenzie, his eyes would ache for a sight of Stewart's strong, kind face, but Stewart would not know. Out there, in the shadow of death, he would remember Stewart, and his heart would cry out passionately for him, but Stewart would not know. And he would think of Cary—how he would think of her—of her and Stewart. He would think of them together.
If he might only tell Stewart what this parting meant—that it was longer than he dreamed—and that he was not merely seeing him off to Argyll.