There was a silence. The Chief's face was turned away. Then he said quietly:
"There was no question of 'a shine.' My Scout was obeying an order. His Chief Scout had said, 'Keep this man under observation; and if he leaves the Flying Ground—follow him, if you can!"
Sherbrand could not speak for pity of the small white face that had grinned at him out of the clumsy woollen helmet. He understood now, that when he had bent to strap the safety-belt about the little body swathed in the flannel-lined pneumatic jacket, he had felt a terrified child-heart bumpity-bumping under his hand. And he struggled with his grief and rage in silence, broken by an utterance from the other man.
"So he followed him into the air, seeing no other course before him. My old friend Saxham has good reason to chortle over such a son. I said to-day, 'I am proud of my Scouts!' Well, to-night I am ten times prouder. I shall tell the Doctor this—when I get a private word with him—and wind up with: 'Thanks to Bawne!'"
"Then the Doctor—" Sherbrand began, a weight lifting with the hope that the news might not have to be broken:
"The Doctor knew. I had said to him, doggily: 'I'll give your pup a fighting chance to prove his Saxham breed.' It's a stark breed—hard as granite, supple as incandescent lava,—with a strain of Berserk madness, and a dash of Oriental fatalism. They can hate magnificently and forgive grandly, and love to the very verge of death."
Could she, Sherbrand wondered, letting his eyes travel to the tall white woman standing by the Doctor, as the Chief went over to them and grasped his old friend's hand. Then both men moved away across the dusky ground together. Those words of thanks and praise were being spoken. Coming from such a source they must be heartening to listen to. But presently when their glow had paled and faded, and the boy did not come back...
Presently, when the empty chair and the vacant bed, and the little garments hanging in the wardrobe should be filled and occupied and worn only by a shadow-child wrought of lovely memories. By and by, when the silence in the house should clamour in the tortured ears of the woman and the man...
Then, Sherbrand knew no praise of their lost darling would console Bawne's parents.... Dry-eyed they might smile until their lips cracked, but their hidden hearts would weep. Their tongues might be silent, but their hearts would cry always; Did we wish our child to be heroic? Had he been a craven we would have had him now beside us! Give us our living boy again! O! keep your empty words!
A cry from Patrine prodded Sherbrand to active sympathy. So at last they had told her. She knew all. And true to her type she was raging at the Doctor and the Chief like a very termagant; upbraiding them with a spate of words rushing over her writhing lips and lioness-frenzy in her blazing eyes.