"Then if you like to have me I will be ready to go with you to-morrow, Lockhart," Lord Gordon announces, and gives Lady Vera one gloomy glance and heavy sigh.
It is for her sake he is going. Since she is not for him he means to try and forget her.
But Lady Vera, in the keen smart of her own pain is oblivious to his.
She rises and slips through the low, French window out upon the balcony, and sits down in the darkness not heavier than her thoughts.
Presently low voices float out to her from the curtained recesses of the window—Captain Lockhart's and Lord Gordon's.
"Rather a sudden resolution, isn't it, this trip across the water?" in Lockhart's clear, full voice.
"Well, yes," in Gordon's voice. "I'm running away from myself, you understand. I fancy we are sailing in the same boat, eh, old fellow?"
"Yes," Captain Lockhart answers, quietly.
"I thought so. Saw that you were hard hit. What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing," Captain Lockhart answers, with grim pleasantry. "I am a soldier. I look for wounds upon the field of battle."