“Oh, as to what you have done—I understand that you are a fool, O’Moy. There’s no more to be said. You are to consider yourself under arrest. I must do it if you were my own brother, which, thank God, you’re not. Come, Grant. Good-bye, O’Moy.” And he held out his hand to him.
Sir Terence hesitated, staring.
“It’s the hand of your friend, Arthur Wellesley, I’m offering you, not the hand of your commanding officer,” said his lordship savagely.
Sir Terence took it, and wrung it in silence, perhaps more deeply moved than he had yet been by anything that had happened to him that morning.
There was a knock at the door, and Mullins opened it to admit the adjutant’s orderly, who came stiffly to attention.
“Major Carruthers’s compliments, sir,” he said to O’Moy, “and his Excellency the Secretary of the Council of Regency wishes to see you very urgently.”
There was a pause. O’Moy shrugged and spread his hands. This message was for the adjutant-general and he no longer filled the office.
“Pray tell Major Carruthers that I—” he was beginning, when Lord Wellington intervened.
“Desire his Excellency to step across here. I will see him myself.”