“We have been here these three days waiting for you,” continued the major, with vehemence; “we have lost all our chance of a glorious brush; we sent you advice that we were waiting for you. And now you appear without your convoy! Captain Lorraine, what does all this mean?”
“Major, my explanation is due at head-quarters, rather than to you.”
“And a deuced hard job you’ll have to give it, or my name’s not M’Rustie,” the senior officer muttered, with more terseness and truth than courtesy. “I’m blessed if I’d stand in your shoes before Old Beaky for a trifle.”
Poor Hilary tried in vain to look as if he took it lightly. Even his bright and buoyant nature could not lift head against the sea of troubles all in front of him.
“I have done no harm,” he kept saying to himself, when, after the few words that duty demanded, he urged his stout horse forward; and the faithful sergeant and corporal, who had shunned all inquisitive hussars, spurred vigorously after him, feeling themselves (as a Briton loves to feel himself) pregnant with mighty evidence. “What harm have I done?” asked Hilary. “I saw to everything; I worked hard. I never quitted my post, except through duty towards a lady. Any gentleman must have done what I did. To be an officer is an accident; to be a gentleman is a necessity.”
“Have you felt altogether,” said conscience to him, “the necessity of that necessity? Have you found it impossible to depart from a gentleman’s first duty—good faith to those who trust in him? When you found yourself bewitched with a foreign lady, did you even let your first love know it? For months you have been playing fast and loose, not caring what misery you caused. And now you are fast in the trap of your looseness. Whatever happens serves you right.”
“Whatever happens serves me right!” cried Hilary Lorraine, aloud, as he lifted his sword just a little way forth, for the last time to admire it, and into the sheath dropped a quick, hot tear. “I have done my duty as an officer badly; and as a gentleman far worse. But, Mabel, if you could see me now, I think that you would forgive me.”
He felt his heart grow warm again with the thought of his own Mabel; and in the courage of that thought, he stood before Lord Wellington.
