“Oh no, naturally. There was nothing that should make any one mean anything,” he said lamely; whereupon, as a reward for his docility, Flora assured him she had great hopes that everything would come right, and when it did, he should know all about it, but that if he went and fancied things and made trouble, she would never speak to him again.
“All right! Henceforth I am blind and deaf and dumb,” he declared.
“That’s right! When you can’t do anything to help, at least you needn’t spoil things. Oh, but that reminds me, Fred. I am not blind and deaf, you know. Is it true that Mr Beardmore is dead, as the servants say?”
“Yes, poor chap! and it was only last night that we were chaffing him about being seedy. He was so perfectly happy looking after the stores, you know, and we said he couldn’t bear to think that he would soon have to write to the Colonel, ‘Sir, I have the honour to report that the last ounce of food has been distributed according to instructions. Please send further orders.’ His occupation would be gone, you see.”
“Yes,” said Flora absently; “but, Fred—only last night? That’s fearfully sudden. Was it—is it true that it was—cholera?”
“Hush!” said Haycraft, looking round apprehensively, “you mustn’t let it get about. If it’s once suspected that cholera has broken out, we shall have the natives dying like flies of sheer terror. And there’s no occasion for panic. It was the poor fellow’s own fault—a case of the ruling passion, you know. He was mad to make the stores last out as long as possible, and there were a lot of tins that Tighe condemned as unfit for food. Beardmore was certain they were all right, and backed his opinion by trying one—with this result. But you see how it is. There’s no reason for any one else to be frightened.”
“I’m glad you told me,” was Flora’s only answer, “for now I can help to keep it from the rest.”
“You’re a trump, Flo! I’d share a secret with you as soon as with any man I know.” And with this unromantic tribute Flora was wholly satisfied.
Mabel had rushed away to her own room, and was now lying sobbing upon her bed, with her face pressed tightly into the pillow, lest any sound should reach Georgia’s ears through the thin partition. At this moment even the news of the outbreak of cholera would not have disquieted her, for she had other things to think of. It seemed to her that a veil had been suddenly removed from her eyes, with the result that for the first time she saw Fitz Anstruther as he really was. “That boy,” as she had been wont to call him, with friendly, half-contemptuous patronage, was a hero. He had gloried in making himself generally useful to Dick and Georgia, doing anything that needed doing, and requiring no thanks for it. Mabel herself had made a slave of him—a willing slave, undoubtedly, for he had entered into all her whims with a ready zest, not merely submitting to them, but furthering them. Why was this? Not because he was fit for nothing better than humouring her fancies, as she had been inclined to think, but because that was the way in which he had deliberately chosen to do her homage. It was because he loved her. Had he chosen, he could have beaten down her defences long ago, but his love knew itself so strong that it could afford to wait. It refused to accept defeat, but it responded to her appeal for mercy. Mabel sprang up from her bed, and began to walk about the room. She could not be still.
“Oh, how can he? how can he?” she demanded of herself. “To care for me so tremendously after the way I have treated him—a man who can do such splendid things! How can I ever meet him? I daren’t face him. He’ll guess. I should be too dreadfully ashamed to let him know I have changed so suddenly. It seemed to come all at once. Oh, why didn’t I care for him a little before? why did I say those awful things to him only the other day? why did I let even Flora see what a mean wretch I was? She said herself that I was mean. And now they’ll all think it’s just because he deserves the V.C. that I care for him, and it’s not. It isn’t what he did, but what he is—but no one will believe it. He has been quite as splendid all the time, and I never saw it; and when he speaks to me again, he’ll think that I—I am different to him just because he didn’t leave Sultan Jān to die. As if that signified! It’s—it’s simply because he cares for me that I care for him.”