“I thought you were Dick’s friend, Captain Tremayne.”
“Why, so I have been; so I am. Perhaps that is another reason why I should hope that he is dead.”
“Is it no reason why you should do what you can to save him?”
He looked at her steadily for an instant, calm under the reproach of her eyes.
“Believe me, Miss Armytage, if I saw a way to save him, to do anything to help him, I should seize it, both for the sake of my friendship for himself and because of my affection for Una. Since you yourself are interested in him, that is an added reason for me. But it is one thing to admit willingness to help and another thing actually to afford help. What is there that I can do? I assure you that I have thought of the matter. Indeed for days I have thought of little else. But I can see no light. I await events. Perhaps a chance may come.”
Her expression had softened. “I see.” She put out a hand generously to ask forgiveness. “I was presumptuous, and I had no right to speak as I did.”
He took the hand. “I should never question your right to speak to me in any way that seemed good to you,” he assured her.
“I had better go to Una. She will be needing me, poor child. I am grateful to you, Captain Tremayne, for your confidence and for telling me.” And thus she left him very thoughtful, as concerned for Una as she was herself.
Now Una O’Moy was the natural product of such treatment. There had ever been something so appealing in her lovely helplessness and fragility that all her life others had been concerned to shelter her from every wind that blew. Because it was so she was what she was; and because she was what she was it would continue to be so.
But Lady O’Moy at the moment did not stand in such urgent need of Miss Armytage as Miss Armytage imagined. She had heard the appalling story of her brother’s escapade, but she had been unable to perceive in what it was so terrible as it was declared. He had made a mistake. He had invaded the convent under a misapprehension, for which it was ridiculous to blame him. It was a mistake which any man might have made in a foreign country. Lives had been lost, it is true; but that was owing to the stupidity of other people—of the nuns who had run for shelter when no danger threatened save in their own silly imaginations, and of the peasants who had come blundering to their assistance where no assistance was required; the latter were the people responsible for the bloodshed, since they had attacked the dragoons. Could it be expected of the dragoons that they should tamely suffer themselves to be massacred?