"Marian is looking for you to take your part in this next syllable, Charles," said a voice in the doorway, and Gerrard looked up with a start to meet Honour's clear eyes. Mrs Jardine's confidences had inspired him with a wild hope that he might find in them something he had not seen there before, but they met his with their usual bright frankness. He ought to have rejoiced, having regard to the compact he had made with himself and with Charteris's memory, but such is the inconsistency of human nature, that he did not.
"Horrid bore!" drawled Captain Cowper. "Who would ever have thought of their hunting me out here? But I shall leave my sister-in-law to amuse you, Gerrard, so you'll be the gainer."
There was no embarrassment in Honour's manner as she took the vacated seat. "I have been so very sorry to hear of your trouble," she said gently, only waiting for Captain Cowper to depart.
She understood, then! Was there any other girl in the world who would have understood—that not the removal of a rival, but the loss of a friend, was the dominant thought in Gerrard's mind? He murmured his thanks with difficulty.
"Would it hurt you to tell me about it?" she asked, and the flood-gates were opened. All the rankling memories which Gerrard could no more have confided to James Antony than that worthy man could have comprehended them if he had, all the unavailing self-reproach—"If I had only done this!" "If I had not said that!"—all the self-depreciation which the persistent dwelling on Charteris's qualities produced naturally in the man who differed so much from him, were poured into Honour's ear.
"And the very last evening I was fool enough to take offence because he saw quicker than I did what was the right thing to be done! Do you think he turned rusty? Not a bit of it. He took it like a brick—actually apologised for offering me advice! There was never any one like him."
"No, I suppose not," said Honour softly. There were tears in her eyes, but she did not ask herself whether Charteris's virtues or Gerrard's account of them had brought them there. She took it for granted that it was the former, and spoke accordingly.
"And the worst of it is, we don't realise what our friends are until we lose them," she murmured.
"No, indeed we don't. One sees one's own unworthiness now, when it is too late—when the remembrance of what he was makes a barrier for ever——"
"A barrier—yes, of course; but a bond, too." This was a state of mind which Honour could thoroughly understand and appreciate. A life-long romantic friendship, absolutely precluded from becoming anything more, was just what appealed to her. It suggested what may be termed the Rolandseck ideal—the hero retiring from the world to an eligible hermitage, affording an extensive view of a desirably situated nunnery, where the heroine was similarly secluded—which, with its peculiar blending of religion and sentimentality, animated so many of her favourite books. "We can never forget that we have both known him, can we? You will tell me more about him, and we will keep his memory alive when all the world has forgotten him."