He stood irresolute, prey to a torturing agony of mind, cursing himself now for his silence, for not having spoken the truth and taken the consequences together with Dick Butler. What was Dick Butler to him, what was his own life to him—if they should demand it for the grave breach of duty he had committed by his readiness to assist a proscribed offender to escape—compared with the honour of Sylvia Armytage? And she, why had she done this for him? Could it be possible that she cared, that she was concerned so much for his life as to immolate her honour to deliver him from peril? The event would seem to prove it. Yet the overmastering joy that at any other time, and in any other circumstances, such a revelation must have procured him, was stifled now by his agonised concern for the injustice to which she had submitted herself.
And then, as he stood there, a suffering, bewildered man, came Carruthers to grasp his hand and in terms of warm friendship to express satisfaction at his acquittal.
“Sooner than have such a price as that paid—” he said bitterly, and with a shrug left his sentence unfinished.
O’Moy came stalking past him, pale-faced, with eyes that looked neither to right nor left.
“O’Moy!” he cried.
Sir Terence checked, and stood stiffly as if to attention, his handsome blue eyes blazing into the captain’s own. Thus a moment. Then:
“We will talk of this again, you and I,” he said grimly, and passed on and out with clanking step, leaving Tremayne to reflect that the appearances certainly justified Sir Terence’s resentment.
“My God, Carruthers! What must he think of me?” he ejaculated.
“If you ask me, I think that he has suspected this from the very beginning. Only that could account for the hostility of his attitude towards you, for the persistence with which he has sought either to convict or wring the truth from you.”
Tremayne looked askance at the major. In such a tangle as this it was impossible to keep the attention fixed upon any single thread.