Fortune favoured Lady Haigh. Coming out on the terrace one evening at dusk, after a long watch in Sir Dugald’s room, she saw Dick crossing the court towards her. He had just seen that the sentries were properly posted, and the flag hauled down for the night, and now he mounted the steps and found the terrace apparently empty. Lady Haigh was standing motionless in the shadow of the doorway, and she heard him sigh, for no obvious reason, as he threw himself into one of the chairs, and then propound despairingly for his own benefit the well-worn conundrum, “Is life worth living?”
“I am sorry to hear you say that, Major North,” said Lady Haigh, in her brisk tones, as she moved forward out of the darkness, and sat down opposite to him. “You are very high in the Service for a man of your age, you have the best possible prospects, a sufficiency of money, and a record which would make most men’s mouths water. Don’t you think that you are a slightly unreasonable—not to say ungrateful—man?”
“I must beg your pardon for being so trite,” said Dick, on the defensive at once. “If I had known you were there, I would have tried to couch my question in more original language.”
“But you would still have asked it?”
“I’m afraid so. You think me a discontented beast, don’t you, Lady Haigh?”
“That I can’t decide until I know what grounds you have for your discontent.”
“It isn’t for my own sake—at least, I come into it too, of course, but it is chiefly on another person’s account.”
“Come, this does you great credit, Major North. That the world should become clouded for you on account of some one else’s troubles—when everything with which you have to do is going on so well”—she could not resist this hit at the reticence which Stratford and he had maintained on the subject of the dangers that threatened the party, but he did not notice it—“this shows a most unselfish spirit. Are the misfortunes of this other person absolutely beyond remedy?”
“They ought not to be, but I can’t for the life of me see how they are to be set right,” said Dick, moodily.
“Well, I am very sorry to hear it. If at any time you think I can be of any help towards setting them right, be sure you let me know. The chief, I may say the only, pleasure I have just now lies in helping other people.”