Peace with Honour

by Sydney C. Grier

Wretched as the outlook appeared to Dick, however, it is a question whether it was not even more dreary for Georgia, since his conscience was clear, and hers was not. She could not rid herself of the conviction that if she had done as Lady Haigh advised, and declined to go to the Palace without first consulting Stratford, he might even now be free and in comparative safety, while if he had given her leave to go, she would not have had herself to reproach for his untoward fate. It was so unlike her usual practice to act on the impulse of a moment of irritation, as she had done in this case, that she asked herself what could have made her refuse so decidedly even to communicate to the gentlemen her intention of visiting her patient. She had not far to seek for an answer. It was Dick whose opposition she had feared. She had been so obstinately determined not to appear in the slightest degree willing to ask either his opinion or his advice, after the words he had uttered in the heat of their discussion, that she had sacrificed his friend and hers to her wounded pride.

Nor was the realisation of this fact her sole punishment. Whatever Dick might think, she had no illusions as to the frame of mind in which Stratford had gone to the Palace. His story she had early heard from Lady Haigh, with the addition of the significant remark that he was never likely to marry now, and it had given her a distinct thrill of pleasure when she found that this faithful lover was willing to be her friend on the footing she liked best. The greater number of her medical confrères in London, and of the many men whose friendship she had gained and kept since her hospital days, had been content to accept her terms and to meet her on the equal ground of comradeship. Some there had been, as Mabel had told Dick, who were anxious to go further, and had been courteously though firmly repulsed; but Stratford was not one of these. He had made a friend of her as if she had been a man, she thought, and he had sacrificed himself for her in exactly the spirit he would have exhibited if Lady Haigh had been in danger, and not Miss Keeling. She knew well enough that there was no personal feeling whatever in his case, but it was different with Dick. Why had he allowed Stratford to go instead of going himself? He did care for her—at least, she had begun to think so until his plain speaking of a week ago had created the breach between them. But now she was on the horns of a dilemma. Either he could not care for her, since he had left it to another man to give his life to save hers, or else, if he did care for her, he was a coward who was willing to shelter himself behind the other man’s self-sacrifice. But Dick’s past record was sufficient to put the latter supposition beyond the bounds of possibility, and Georgia was thrown back upon the former. He could not care for her, and she cared for him. To the woman whose heart had never been touched before, the thought was almost unendurable in the shame it brought with it.

And she had sent Stratford to his death! What would there have been in the slight humiliation—more fancied than real, after all—involved in asking his leave as head of the party before quitting the Mission, compared with the overwhelming remorse and misery which now oppressed her? She recalled the threats launched against herself by Antar Khan’s mother, and sobbed and shuddered at the thought that the tortures of which the mere mention had been considered sufficient to terrify herself were now being inflicted on another, and by her fault. Lady Haigh, who came wandering in and out of her room like a restless ghost, could offer her no comfort, since the best they could hope for was that Stratford was dead already, cut down by the guard in some conflict provoked by himself, and that he had thus died without either torture or indignity. The two women could not endure to talk, could not even pray; they could only weep in concert and exchange half-uttered surmisings which were worse than certainties.

The day wore away, and Mr Hicks, who had spent the greater part of it busily and happily in passing all the rifles in review, cleaning them and adjusting the mechanism, came to Dick, as he sat brooding gloomily over the state of affairs in the office, and represented mildly but firmly that the whole party would be the better for some dinner. He had put up with the absence of tiffin under the painful circumstances of his visit, he said; but he could not see that because one poor fellow had got wiped out all the rest must necessarily starve. Thus reminded that he had taken no food since breakfast-time, Dick awoke to a perception of the duties of hospitality, and apologising to Mr Hicks for the inconvenience and discomfort to which he had been subjected, ordered the meal to be served at the usual hour. It was a very small and lugubrious company that met in the dining-room. Dick had sent a message to the ladies, asking whether they would appear at table, but no answer was returned; and Mr Hicks was the only person who possessed an appetite. He did his best to worry his hosts into eating something, but he was not very successful; and at last Fitz left the table suddenly, muttering something about the flag, which he feared had not, in the general confusion, been hauled down as usual at sunset. As the noise of his hurrying footsteps on the stones of the terrace died away, another sound became audible—the blare and din of native music, the shrill cries of triumph of women, and the approaching tread of a multitude.

“It’s coming at last!” cried Dick, springing up from his seat and buckling on his sword. “You know your post, Hicks?”

“Wait a minute, Major,” said Mr Hicks. “Doesn’t it strike you that this is rather a new way of conducting an attack?”

“Why, what else could it be?” asked Dick.

The American turned aside, and would not meet his eye as he answered—

“Well, if they have put an end to the poor fellow, I would bet my last red cent that they would carry his remains about in procession to show the people—to show us, too, for the matter of that—and it won’t be a pretty sight for the ladies to see, any way.”

“Good gracious, no!” cried Dick. “Say nothing to them at present, Hicks. We will just order the servants to their posts without troubling the ladies, and then watch from the gate and see what happens.”