They had reached a little circle by a piece of ornamental water, facing which a granite-hewn seat had been placed. She sank to it obediently, if sulkily.
“It may perhaps help you to understand what Terence has done when I tell you that in his place, loving Dick as I do, I must have pledged myself precisely as he did or else despised myself for ever. And being pledged, I must keep my word or go in the same self-contempt.” He elaborated his argument by explaining the full circumstances under which the pledge had been exacted. “But be in no doubt about it,” he concluded. “If Terence knows of Dick’s presence at Monsanto he has no choice. He must deliver him up to a firing party—or to a court-martial which will inevitably sentence him to death, no matter what the defence that Dick may urge. He is a man prejudged, foredoomed by the necessities of war. And Terence will do this although it will break his heart and ruin all his life. Understand me, then, that in enjoining you never to allow Terence to suspect that Dick is present, I am pleading not so much for you or for Dick, but for Terence himself—for it is upon Terence that the hardest and most tragic suffering must fall. Now do you understand?”
“I understand that men are very stupid,” was her way of admitting it.
“And you see that you were wrong in judging Terence as you did?”
“I—I suppose so.”
She didn’t understand it all. But since Tremayne was so insistent she supposed there must be something in his point of view. She had been brought up in the belief that Ned Tremayne was common sense incarnate; and although she often doubted it—as you may doubt the dogmas of a religion in which you have been bred—yet she never openly rebelled against that inculcated faith. Above all she wanted to cry. She knew that it would be very good for her. She had often found a singular relief in tears when vexed by things beyond her understanding. But she had to think of that flock of gallants in the ballroom waiting to pay court to her and of her duty towards them of preserving her beauty unimpaired by the ravages of a vented sorrow.
Tremayne sat down beside her. “So now that we understand each other on that score, let us consider ways and means to dispose of Dick.”
At once she was uplifted and became all eagerness.
“Yes, Yes. You will help me, Ned?”
“You can depend upon me to do all in human power.”