"'Don't speak of it. I know you had some good motive,' said Jack.
"'Necessity—sheer, hard necessity,' said poor Sawyer. 'The money I had got that morning was only just in time to save my younger brother from life-long disgrace, perhaps imprisonment.'
"Then painfully—in short and broken sentences—he related to Jack the history of his hard, sad, but heroic life. He did not think it heroic—it seemed to him, in his single-minded conscientiousness, that he had done no more than his duty, and that but imperfectly. He had given his life for others, and, hardest of all, for others who had little appreciated his devotion.
"'My father died when I was only about twelve,' he said. 'He had been a clergyman, but his health failed, and he had to leave England and take a small charge in Switzerland. There he met my mother—a Swiss, and there I was partly brought up. When he died he told me I must take his place as head of the family. I was not so attractive as my brother and sister; I was shy and reserved. Naturally my mother cared most for them. I fear she was too indulgent. My sister married badly, and I had to try to help her. My poor brother, he was always in trouble and yet he meant well——'
"And so he told Jack the whole melancholy history, entering into details which I have forgotten, and which, even if I remembered them, it would be only painful to relate. His brother was now in America—doing well he hoped, thanks of course to him; his sister's circumstances too had improved. For the first time in his life Sawyer had begun to feel his burdens lessening, when he was brought face to face with the knowledge that all in this world was over for him. Uncomplainingly he had, through all these long years, borne the heat and burden of the day; rest for him was to be elsewhere, not here. But as he had met life, so he now met death—calmly and unrepiningly, certain that hard as it had been hard as it seemed now, it must yet be for the best—the solving of the riddle he left to God.
"And his last thought was for others—for the mother who had so little appreciated him, who required to lose him, perhaps, to bring home to her his whole value.
"'I have always foreseen the possibility of this,' he said, 'and prepared for it as best I could. Besides the money I have confided to you, I insured my life, most fortunately, last year. She will have enough to get on pretty comfortably—and tell her,' he hesitated, 'I don't think she will miss me very much. I have never had the knack of drawing much affection to myself. But tell her I was quite satisfied that it is all for the best, and Louis may yet return to cheer her old age.'
"Jack stayed till he could stay no longer. Then, with a grasp of the hand which meant more than many words, he left his new, yet old friend, promising to be down again at Kadikoi first thing in the morning. 'But take the papers with you, Berkeley, the papers and the pocket-book, in case, you know——' were Sawyer's last words to him.
"Jack was even earlier the next day than he had expected. But when he got to the tent the canvas door was drawn to.
"'Asleep?' he said to the doctor of the 25th Hussars, who came up at that moment, recognizing him.