The Path to Honour

by Sydney C. Grier

"My dear fellow, you know that the person of whom we are both thinking would no more be influenced by a gold medal or a C.B. than by a diamond necklace. No, hang it! the plan was yours, and the execution was yours. I backed you up, you say? Well, then, put on my tombstone, 'He was a good second,' and I ask no more."

But Charteris could not bring himself to take this philosophic view of the case, and went about abusing the authorities and cursing the injustice of fate, until he drew down upon himself a rebuke from James Antony.

"Since you can neither refuse your honours nor share them, my good fellow, you may as well wear them gracefully," he said. "As it is, you are doing Gerrard no good. He was unlucky in his first post, which has told against him, but he is a capable man, and bound to come to the front eventually, provided his friends don't spoil his chances."

The shrewd common-sense of the advice silenced Charteris's murmurs, and he faced with less outward rebelliousness the prospect of a week or two at Ranjitgarh. This was a mere interlude before plunging again into the main current of battle. The Governor-General was coming to the Granthi capital to take counsel with the Commander-in-Chief as to the further course of the war, which had not hitherto been conducted with conspicuous success, and the honours for the Agpur campaign were to be conferred. The cantonments and the Residency were full, and Brevet-Major Charteris, C.B., was glad to share his former restricted quarters with Gerrard. The Edmund Antonys were in occupation of the house again, James Antony and his wife retiring into two rooms of the main block, while Lady Cinnamond was once more at Government House. With her had come down from the hills Marian Cowper, a sorrowful figure in the heavy weeds then worn by even the youngest widows, but taking up the burden of life again bravely. If she still shrank from Honour, it was only they and their mother who could perceive it. Sir Arthur Cinnamond arrived from the front with the Commander-in-Chief for a week about Christmas time, and it so happened that Gerrard came suddenly upon Honour riding with her father the day after his arrival. She wore a habit made like the uniform of Sir Arthur's famous Peninsular regiment—a fashion which probably owed its vogue to the semi-military costume adopted by the young Queen Victoria for reviews. Civilian ladies—whose husbands had no uniform to be copied—called it fast, or at least 'spirited,' (Gerrard had heard Mrs James Antony animadverting upon it only that morning,) but the severe lines of the coat suited Honour well in combination with the long trailing skirt and the broad hat with its drooping feather. As he rode up to the pair, and noted the serious face and the firm lines of the mouth, it struck Gerrard as curiously ironical that to a girl of this type should have fallen such a prolonged period of indecision as Honour had undergone between the claims of Charteris and himself. The thought was still in his mind when she glanced round and saw him, and the change in her face was like the waking into life of a statue. The lines softened, the eyes dropped, and a wave of crimson flooded forehead and cheeks. Sir Arthur shouted a hearty welcome to Gerrard, commanded him to dinner that evening, to meet his eldest son, who was on the Headquarters Staff, and turned judiciously to speak to some one else. Honour's eyes were on her horse's mane, Gerrard's were devouring her face, but for the moment both of them were tongue-tied. Honour recovered herself first, and spoke with a desperate effort.

"And—and how is Major Charteris?" she asked, and Gerrard's revived hope died on the spot. He could not understand afterwards why he did not fall from his horse. What he answered he never knew, but it seemed that he had laughed aloud, for Sir Arthur turned quickly and looked at him. A certain severity, disappointment, puzzled inquiry, were in the glance, but Gerrard had wrenched his horse round and was riding away, leaving the General still looking after him. He rode headlong back to the Residency, and with the impulse of a wounded creature seeking concealment, made straight for his own quarters in the inner courtyard. On the verandah he paused abruptly, for Charteris was sitting there reading a tattered number of Bell's Life. He tried to speak, but no words would come, and Charteris looked up and saw him.

"Why, Hal!" he cried. Gerrard brushed past him hastily.

"I've seen her. It's you, Bob," he jerked out, and threw himself on his cot. Charteris had sprung from his chair, but turned back on the verandah step.

"Hal, old boy, I'm uncommon sorry. You do believe it, don't you?"

"I do. And you know you are the only man——"

Charteris's hand was on his shoulder a moment as the words failed him, and then his ringing footsteps went down into the courtyard, and Gerrard heard him shouting for his horse. The man who had all went out into the sunshine, the man who had nothing was left. To keep himself from tracing the sound of the horse's feet growing faint in the distance as the happy lover rode away, Gerrard forced himself to plan for the future. He must leave Ranjitgarh, and at once; he could not stay and watch the happiness of the pair, lest he should grow to hate them both. Bob would understand, Bob would not expect it. Some day he might be able to stand it, but now—— He had not realised how firmly he was building on Honour's parting words; he had not doubted that the blush just now was for him. But it was for Bob, and Bob was worthy of any woman's love, even of that of the woman of women. "Heaven bless them both!" groaned Gerrard, and rolled over with his face to the wall to make his plans. He must wait to wring Bob's hand when he returned triumphant, but after that he would go. Bob would take his place at the Cinnamonds' dinner-table, would sit next to Honour, would—— No, it did not bear thinking of; that way madness lay. To his own plans! He would go back to his Habshiabadis, and move heaven and earth to get the help of the contingent accepted by the Commander-in-Chief. If not, and when the war was over—no, he could not face the solitude of his position at Habshiabad again. Had he not General Desdichado as a warning of the depths to which an isolated European, without hope and without ambition, could sink? There was a place for him elsewhere. Coming events were casting their shadows before them, and there could be little doubt that the close of the war would see the annexation of Granthistan. Sir Edmund Antony, who had striven so zealously and with such a single eye against annexation, would not stay to see it; his brother James would be the man of the hour when the step was taken. The Governor-General would be just, even delicate, in his treatment of the vanquished; Sir Edmund would not be shelved, but transferred to some other post where his tenderness for native susceptibilities would be an advantage instead of a drawback. Thither Gerrard would accompany him. Had not Sir Edmund said to him that morning, almost wistfully, "I should like to have you with me, Gerrard, when I am kicked out of Granthistan"? and he had answered eagerly that he could desire nothing better—then paused suddenly, remembering that there might be some one else to consult as to the ordering of his life.