WOUNDED HERO AND MINISTERING ANGEL.
“‘Are we not halves of one dissevered world,
Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part? never!
Till thou, the lover, know; and I, the knower,
Love--’”
read Mabel, and paused, since it was evident that her auditor had some
remark to make.
“It has always seemed to me,” said Mr Burgrave, “that in this meeting
between Paracelsus and Aprile, whose characteristics are so
essentially feminine, the poet has typified for all time the union of
the masculine and feminine elements in human nature. Woman--the
creature of feeling, man--the creature of reason, neither complete
without the other. Before perfection can be attained, the lover must
learn to know, the knower to love.”
“All women are not creatures of feeling,” said Mabel.
“But you would scarcely say that any woman was a creature of reason?
Such a--a person would not be a woman. She would be a monstrosity.”
“I mean that I don’t think you can divide people by hard and fast
lines in that way. It’s perfectly possible for a man to be a creature
of feeling, and I know women who are quite as reasonable as any man.”
“Pardon me; you don’t altogether follow my argument. I yield to no one
in my admiration of the conclusions at which women arrive. They are
often--one might say very often--astonishingly correct, but they are
purely the result of a leap in the dark, and not of any process of
reasoning. And since this is so, no wise man can feel safe in acting
upon them, while where the lady--as is not infrequently the case with
her charming sex--is biassed by her personal feelings, they are liable
to be dangerously deceptive.”
Mabel closed the book with a bang. “I wonder,” she said angrily, “at
your talking in this way, as if I wasn’t horribly humiliated enough
already. It was simply a chance that I didn’t identify the right men,
and I _know_ just the same that it was Bahram Khan who employed them.”
Mr Burgrave raised his eyebrows slightly. “Indeed, my dear Miss North,
you must pardon my maladroitness. I assure you that I had no intention
whatever of alluding to the--let us say the disagreeable incident of
yesterday. I was dealing purely with generalities.”
“But you yourself know perfectly well--though you pretend not to think
so--that it was Bahram Khan,” persisted Mabel.
The Commissioner raised himself on his elbow and looked straight at
her, and Mabel quailed. “And is it possible,” he demanded, “that you
believe I am deliberately sheltering from justice, contrary to the
dictates of my own conscience, a wretch who has dared to raise his
hand against an Englishwoman--against a lady for whom I have the
highest regard? No, Miss North, you must be good enough to withdraw
those words. Even your brother and his wife are sufficiently just to
believe me an honourable man, although we differ on so many points.”
The stern blue eyes under the lowering brows seemed to pierce Mabel
through and through. She half rose from her chair, then sat down
again, and repressed with difficulty a threatened burst of tears.
“I--I didn’t mean that,” she faltered. “All I meant was that I didn’t
see how you could think anything else when we are all so sure of it.”
“Allow me to say that I credit you with the sincerity you refuse to
recognise in me. Your brother has a strong prejudice--there is no
other word for it--against Bahram Khan, which he has transmitted to
you, and you look at the facts in the light of that prejudice. I was
perfectly willing to be convinced of the young man’s guilt by the
merest shred of anything that could be called evidence, but none was
produced. The case against him broke down completely. Would you have
me withdraw my countenance from a man whom I conscientiously believe
to be innocent, and ruin all his prospects, simply on the score of an
unf-- unsupported opinion of yours? No, Miss North, I won’t believe it
of you. You must perceive that I am right.”
“But you said our intuitions were wonderfully correct, and that your
judgment was incomplete by itself,” urged Mabel.
“To be of any real value, the feminine intuition must be confirmed by
the masculine judgment. Its use is purely supplementary.”
“Oh, Mr Burgrave, you can’t really mean that! Why, my brother would
never dream of doing anything without consulting his wife. He thinks
most highly of her judgment.”
“Surely Major North is the best judge of his own affairs?” suggested
Mr Burgrave dryly. “If he has confidence in his wife’s judgment, it is
only natural he should wish to avail himself of it. Such would not be
my case, I confess, but then, the confidence would be wanting.”
“But, according to you, I ought to model my opinions on some one’s,”
said Mabel--“Dick’s, I suppose--and that’s just what you have been
scolding me for doing.”
“Dick’s?” said the Commissioner reflectively. “No, not Dick’s, I
think. That was not at all what I had in my mind, Miss North. And have
I been scolding you, or is that another mistaken intuition? You know
how gladly I would have accepted your view of Bahram Khan’s guilt, if
that had been possible?”
“I know you said so, and I hoped so much----” Mabel’s eyes were full
of tears.
“And do you know why that was?”
“No, indeed, I can’t imagine.” She spoke hastily, scenting danger. The
Commissioner smiled paternally.
“No? Then will you do me the favour to consider the matter? Ask
yourself why I was willing, even anxious, to be converted from my own
opinion. When you have arrived at the answer, I shall know.”
He smiled at her again from his pillows, but Mabel muttered something
incoherent and fled.
“I don’t know what to do!” she cried, in the seclusion of her own
room. “Does he think I am a baby, or a little school-girl? If he wants
to propose, why can’t he do it straight out, and take his refusal like
a man? I know how to manage that sort of thing. But to break the idea
to me gradually in this way, as if I was--oh, I don’t know what--a
sort of fairy that must be handled gently for fear it should vanish
into thin air--it’s insufferable! And the worst of it is, I can’t
quite make out how to stop it. I seem somehow to have got myself into
his power.”
To see as little of Mr Burgrave as possible, and to confine the
conversation to safe subjects when she did meet him, was the remedy
which naturally suggested itself, and Mabel did her best to apply it;
but, to her dismay, it did not appear to produce any effect. She had
even a distinct feeling that it was just what Mr Burgrave had
expected. Moreover, it was extremely difficult to put in practice. Now
that the operation had been performed on the patient’s knee, and the
leg fixed immovably in a splint, he was allowed to be lifted on a
couch, and thus to spend his days in the society of his hosts. Dick
was out as much as ever, and when Georgia was busy, it was obviously
Mabel’s duty to entertain the invalid. It is sad to relate that when
escape proved impossible, she was reduced to assuming an intense
interest in the study of Browning, toiling through “Sordello” with
astonishing patience. But if any valid excuse offered itself for
leaving Mr Burgrave to his own reflections, she embraced it gladly,
and when the arrival in the neighbourhood of one of the nomadic tribes
brought Georgia a sudden rush of patients, she volunteered at once to
help her in dealing with them.
The surgery in which Georgia received her visitors was a building
standing by itself in the compound, and approached by a special gate
in the wall, so that the ladies might come to see their doctor without
fear of encountering any rude masculine gaze. As an additional
precaution, when the wives of any of the chief men came to the
surgery, they brought a youth with them as attendant, who mounted
guard over a motley array of slippers at the door, and completed the
security against profane intrusion. Inside, Georgia dealt with the
cases individually in a small room at one end, while in the large room
the visitors sat on the floor in rows, looking at the pictures on the
walls, or listening casually to the Biblewoman, trained by Miss
Jenkins at the Bab-us-Sahel Mission, who sat among them and read or
talked. At the other end was another small room, where a patient and
her friends were occasionally accommodated when Georgia had any
special reason for wishing to keep the case under her own eye, and the
husband was more than usually indulgent. At other times there stood in
this room a spring bedstead, which was never used, but which the women
made up parties to inspect, personally conducted by Rahah. There was a
history attaching to this object of pilgrimage. Two years before a
lady globe-trotter of exalted rank, in the course of an adventurous
flying visit to the frontier, had spent a night at the Norths’, and
been stirred to enthusiasm by Georgia’s quiet but far-reaching work
among the women. Her Grace deplored sympathetically the absence of a
proper hospital, and offered to put her London drawing-room at Mrs
North’s disposal during her next visit home, that she might plead for
funds to establish one. Georgia pointed out, however, that the
smallness of the station, and the uncertain character of the
wanderings of the tribes, would probably result in leaving the
hospital empty for eleven months out of the year, while if Dick should
be transferred to another post, its _raison d’être_ would be gone.
The duchess was disappointed, but not crushed. Would Mrs North allow
her to send a gift, just one, to the surgery as it stood at present?
She could not bear to think of the terrible discomfort the poor sick
women must suffer.
Georgia consented, and after a time the gift arrived, brought
up-country at a vast expenditure of toil and money. It was a
regulation hospital bed, the very latest patent, which could be made
to roll itself the wrong way like a bucking horse, stand up on end,
kneel down like a camel, dislocate itself in unexpected places, and
perform other acrobatic feats, all by turning a handle. Rahah sat
before it in silent admiration for a whole morning, occasionally
pressing the wires gently down for the pleasure of seeing them rise
again. When she had drunk in this delight sufficiently, she ventured
to put the bedstead through its paces, rushing to summon her mistress
in joyful awe at each new trick she discovered. But so far, her
enjoyment was incomplete. To be perfect, the bed needed a patient to
occupy it, and at last one was brought in by her friends, crippled by
some rheumatic affection. Rahah herself laid her on the bed, only to
behold her leap from it immediately with the strength of perfect
health. There was an evil spirit in the bed, she declared. All other
beds sank when you lay down upon them, this one rose up. And in spite
of the wonderful cure of this first and only case, the bed was never
occupied again. It was talked of all along the frontier, the women
came for miles to see it, and watched in shuddering delight while
Rahah showed them what it could do; but it was only very rarely that a
heroine could be found bold enough even to touch it with a finger.
Meanwhile, the patients continued to sleep on their mats or their
charpoys, insisting that the bed should be turned out of the room
before they would take up their quarters there, lest the evil spirit
should seize upon them during the hours of darkness.
On this particular morning Rahah was exhibiting the wonders of the bed
to a party of new arrivals, and Mabel was deputed to see that the
patients were admitted into Georgia’s sanctum in proper order, and
only one at a time. Seeing that they were all comfortably seated
facing the Biblewoman, she thought it would be best to begin with
those nearest the door, thus going through the whole assemblage
methodically. The women, on the other hand, considered that the worst
cases ought to be seen first, and each woman was firmly convinced that
her own case was the worst of all. Hence arose an uproar, in which the
sympathising friends accompanying each would-be patient joined with
all the force of their lungs, besieging the unfortunate Mabel, who
could not understand a word, with a tumult of assertions,
contradictions, and maledictions. At last one woman, who carried a
baby, was seized with a bright idea. Flinging away a fold of her veil
from the child’s face, she held it out to Mabel, exhibiting the awful
condition of its eyes, which were almost sightless from neglected
ophthalmia, as an incontestable proof of her right to the first place.
The hint was not lost upon the other women, and in a moment Mabel was
surrounded by sights from which she recoiled in horror. At first she
was too much appalled to move, as each woman displayed triumphantly
the urgency of her own need, and then she turned sick and faint. The
agglomeration of so many miseries was too much for her. Rahah,
returning at the moment, left the outer door open, and this gave her
courage to escape. Pressing her hands over her eyes, she burst through
the astonished crowd, drank in a draught of pure fresh air, and then
fairly ran across the compound and back to the house. Mounting the
steps with difficulty, she staggered and caught at the rail to steady
herself, only avoiding a fall by a wild clutch at one of the pillars
when she reached the top. An exclamation of concern reached her ears,
and she became dimly conscious that Mr Burgrave was making desperate
efforts to rise from his couch.
“You are ill, Miss North! What is it? You don’t mean to say that
another attempt has been made----?”
“To carry me off? Oh no, not quite so near home.” Mabel laughed a
little, and as she began to see more clearly, noticed how the
remorseful anxiety in his face gave place to unfeigned relief. “No,
I’m not ill, only silly and faint.”
“Try a whiff of this, then.” He passed her a bottle of salts. “I was
allowed to revive myself with it when my doctors had been
investigating the inside of my knee a little more closely than was
pleasant.”
“Oh, don’t!” cried Mabel faintly. “I never want to hear a doctor
mentioned again.”
“Why, what has happened? Has Mrs North turned vivisectionist?”
“No, of course not. It was only that I was helping her with her
patients, and they had such awful things the matter with them that
I--well, I ran away.”
“And very wisely. Do I understand that Mrs North required you to
expose yourself to the sight of these horrors? It is monstrous!”
“She didn’t ask me to come; I offered to help her.”
“In the hope of pleasing her, of course. It is all the same. In the
abundant strength of mind and body she possesses, she forgets that
other people are more delicately organised than herself. I am amazed
at her lack of consideration.”
“I won’t have you say such things about Georgia!” cried Mabel. “She is
the best and dearest woman I know.”
“I honour your enthusiasm. Pray don’t mistake me. I have the highest
possible esteem myself for Mrs North, but she is a little too
strenuous for my taste.”
“I wouldn’t have her the least bit different. I wish I was like her,
instead of being so silly and cowardly.”
“No, Miss North, let me beg of you not to wish that. I would not have
_you_ different. Your sister-in-law’s training and her past
experiences account for many--er--remarkable points in her character,
but, believe me, your true friends would rather see in you this
womanly shrinking from the sight of suffering than a bold
determination to relieve it.”
“I hope I may consider you one of those true friends?” Mabel tried to
infuse a note of strong sarcasm into her voice.
“I hope you may. It is difficult, is it not, to feel confidence in one
who differs so totally from Mrs North and her husband? But this is a
question upon which we will not enter--yet.”
“Could I say that I preferred to enter upon it at once?” Mabel
demanded angrily of herself when she had made her escape. “Somehow he
gets such an advantage over me by putting me down in that lofty way,
and yet I don’t know how to stop it. The idea of his daring to
criticise Georgie to me!”
But Mr Burgrave was even bolder than Mabel imagined. Returning the
next morning from a ride with Fitz Anstruther, she was greeted by a
laugh from Georgia as she mounted the steps.
“Oh, Mab, I have been having quite a scolding, and all about you! It’s
clear that I am not worthy to have such a sister-in-law.”
“Georgie! you don’t mean that Mr Burgrave has been so rude as to----”
“Now, Mab, you know better than that. It would be impossible to him to
be rude. He simply took me to task, very mildly and calmly, about the
way I neglect you, though I stand to you in the place of a mother----”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mabel, her face scarlet.
“So he says. It seems I am lacking in the tenderness which should be
lavished upon you. Our rough frontier life ought to be tempered to you
by all sorts of sweetness and light which I have made no attempt to
supply. I have been inconsiderate in bringing you into contact with
the revolting details of my professional work, and a lot more. Do
forgive me, Mab. I really haven’t meant to do all these dreadful
things, but you did want to make acquaintance with realities, you
know.”
“That man is getting unbearable!” broke from Mabel. “I shall speak to
him--No, I shan’t,” she added wearily; “it’s no good. He gets the
better of me somehow or other. Can’t you put a little cold poison into
his medicine, Georgie? Surely it’s a case in which the end would
justify the means.”
She went indoors with rather a forced laugh, and Fitz, who had been
looking out over the desert without appearing to notice what was being
said, turned round suddenly to Georgia.
“Can you honestly expect me to stand all this much longer, Mrs North?”
“All what?” asked Georgia, in astonishment.
“The Commissioner’s intolerable assumption. Any one would think he was
Miss North’s guardian, or her father, or even”--with a fierce
laugh--“her husband. What right has he to take it upon himself to
defend her?--as if she needed any defending against you! It’s nothing
but his arrogant impudence.”
“But still”--Georgia spoke with some hesitation--“how does it affect
you?”
“Oh, Mrs North, you needn’t pretend not to have noticed. You know as
well as I do that the Commissioner and I are both--er--well, we are
both awfully gone on Miss North, and he isn’t playing fair. You have
seen it, haven’t you?”
“I have, indeed, but I hoped you hadn’t quite found out what your real
feelings were.”
“Surely you must have thought me a hopeless idiot? I found out all
about it the day she had that fall from her horse.”
“So long ago as that? Why, you had scarcely known her a fortnight!”
“But I met her first years ago, before we went to Kubbet-ul-Haj.
Besides, what does it signify if I had only known her an hour? It is
the kind of feeling one can only have for one woman in one’s life.”
“But you didn’t say anything?” asked Georgia anxiously.
Fitz laughed shamefacedly. “No, I have said nothing even yet. The fact
is, it seemed sacrilege even to think of it. She is so lovely, so
sweet, so far above me in every way! Oh, Mrs North, I could rave about
her for hours.”
“And so you shall,” was the cordial but unexpected response, “as often
as you like, and I will listen patiently, provided that you still say
nothing to her.”
“No, no; things can’t go on in this way. You see, the Commissioner has
changed all that. He goes in and fights for his own hand in the most
barefaced way, and I must get my innings too. After all, though it
sounds horribly low to say it, I did kill the fellow that was carrying
her off, and bring her back.”
“Of course you did. If that was all, you certainly deserve to win
her.”
“Yes; but then the Commissioner scores in having got hurt. He sees her
for ever so long every day, and she is so awfully kind, talking to him
and reading to him, and letting him prose away to her, that no wonder
he thinks he is making splendid running. I only wish I had got hurt
too.”
“Do you really?” asked Georgia, with meaning in her tone.
“No, Mrs North, you’re right; I don’t. If we had both been hurt there
would have been no one with the slightest chance of catching up the
rascals. Whether she takes him or me in the end, I did save her, at
any rate.”
“Good,” said Georgia encouragingly. “I like that spirit.”
“Well, now you know how things stand. You see what an advantage the
Kumpsioner Sahib is taking of her gratitude and your kindness, and you
can guess how I feel about it. Tell me candidly, do you think I have
the slightest chance? Why did you say that you hoped I had not
understood my own feelings?”
“Simply because a waiting game is your only chance. Since you ask me,
I will speak plainly. You are younger than Mabel, you know; it is
undeniable, unfortunately”--as Fitz made a gesture of impatience--“and
Dick and I have got into the way of treating you like a son or a
brother--a very much younger brother. We haven’t taken you seriously,
and I am very much afraid Mabel doesn’t either. Mr Burgrave holds a
very high position, and he is a man of great distinction. We on this
frontier cherish an unfortunate prejudice against him, of course, but
elsewhere he is considered most charming and fascinating. How can she
but feel flattered by his homage? And he has undoubtedly acquired a
great influence over her; I can’t help seeing that. And yet I can’t
make out that she cares for him, and I have watched her closely.”
“Well, that is one grain of comfort, at any rate,” said Fitz
disconsolately. “But he is not going to carry her off without my
having the chance to say a word to her first, I can tell him.”
Georgia looked up anxiously. “Don’t throw away your only hope,” she
entreated. “What you have to do is to make yourself necessary to her.
You have been managing very well hitherto--always ready to do anything
she wanted. Make yourself so useful to her as a friend that she would
rather keep you as a lover than lose you altogether.”
“Oh, I say, Mrs North, you don’t flatter a man’s vanity much!”
“Yes, I do. At least, I am showing that I think you capable of a great
deal of self-effacement for the sake of winning her.”
“And if the Commissioner carries her off meanwhile?”
“I don’t think he will, provided you let her alone. But if you worry
her to have you, she may accept him just to be rid of your attentions.
And then there will be nothing to be done but to bear it like a man.”
“You don’t disguise the taste of your medicines much, Mrs Dr North.
I’ll chew the bitter pill as I ride, and try to look as if I liked it.
I was to meet the Major at the old fort at ten o’clock. It’s awfully
good of you to have listened so patiently to my symptoms, and
prescribed for me so fully.”
He ran down the steps and rode away, arriving at the fort a little
late, to find that Dick was already discussing with Colonel Graham the
business on which they had come. A series of small thefts, irritating
rather than serious, had occurred on the club premises of late, and
the minds of the members were exercised over the question of their
prevention in future. As Fitz rode up Dick and Colonel Graham were
descending to the courtyard after making the round of the walls, and
the former signed to him to wait where he was.
“I never remember such a succession of petty robberies before,” said
Colonel Graham. “The natives must be in a very unsettled state.”
“I’m not sorry these things have happened,” returned Dick. “In fact,
I’m glad of it.”
Colonel Graham glanced at him. “What have you got in your head?” he
asked.
“Simply this. I suppose you believe, as I do, that the thief gets in
by climbing over the wall, while the watchman is busy guarding the
gateway and never thinks that there is any other means of entering?”
“That’s my idea. In a climate like this mud-brick is bound to go
pretty soon if it isn’t looked after, and for years the rain has
washed it down into these rubbish-heaps, till they are as good as so
many flights of steps. What with the grass and bushes growing all
about, it’s as easy as possible to get in. I could do it myself.”
“Then you agree that it would be as well to make it harder? I propose
that we call a club meeting and invite subscriptions for the purpose
of putting the walls into proper repair. Otherwise we shall soon have
the place down on our heads.”
“But that sort of thing will take a long time to organise.”
“It needn’t, since it’s only to keep the natives from thinking there’s
anything up. So far as I can see, there’s no particular reason why you
and I shouldn’t head the subscription list with a thousand rupees
each--so that the most pressing work may be begun at once--or why that
two thousand rupees shouldn’t last out better than such a sum ever did
before.”
“Good! Are we to take the young fellows into our confidence?”
“Runcorn may as well know all about it. A sapper will be useful in
deciding what it’s possible to do in the time. Happily he and the
canal people have kept the wall overlooking the water in tolerable
repair. As for the other sides, we must clear away the rubbish from
the foot of the walls, and build up the parapets where the bricks have
weathered away. The bushes must go, naturally, and the ramparts be
made a fairly safe promenade--for the ladies, of course. The tower
stairs are awfully dangerous, and it will be quite natural to have
them seen to, and the floors and loopholes may as well be looked after
while we are about it, though we shall never get a satisfactory
flanking fire without rebuilding the whole thing. I shall take it upon
myself to present the place with a new gate--not obtrusively martial
in appearance, but with a certain reserve strength about it. My wife
will think me a terrible Vandal for spoiling the beautiful ruin her
father left behind him, but it’s obvious that the _chaukidar_ will be
able to look after the place better when there’s a gate to shut.”
“I should say there won’t be much ruin left when you have done with
it,” said Colonel Graham. “It’s a mere coincidence that our largest
godown turns out to be in the way of the canal extension works, and
has been condemned. There would be no harm in storing the corn and a
few other little trifles in the vaults under the club-house, and it
would give us an excuse for posting a sentry here at night.”
“Good,” said Dick, in his turn. “What accomplished deceivers we shall
be by the time this is over, if we live to see it!”
“You think things are in a bad way?”
“What do you think yourself?”
“I? I have no opinion. You have been on this frontier much longer than
I have, and you are in political charge. I’ve seen enough to know that
there’s something queer going on, that’s all.”
“I’ll tell you one thing that’s going on. Five times in the last
fortnight I have received secret information of tribal gatherings
which were to be held without my knowledge. Of course I made a point
of turning up, and behaving just as if I had received an invitation in
due form.”
“Well, that was all right, so far.”
“Yes, but think of the _jirgahs_ that I did not hear of. What went on
at them?”
“I see; it looks bad. What do you propose doing?”
“What ought to be done is to revive the martial law proclamation,
which has been in abeyance for the last four years. But I am not
supreme here just now.”
“Surely the Commissioner would not interfere with the exercise of your
authority?”
“The Commissioner has imbibed so many horrors about the Khemistan
frontier that he is pleased every morning to find himself alive, and
the house not burnt over his head. I believe he regards the
improvement as due to his own presence here, and at the same time
considers it an additional proof that Khemistan may now be governed
like all the other provinces. If I had things my own way, my very
first move would be to deport Burgrave, preferably to Simla, where he
could both be happy himself and a cause of happiness to others, but as
it is, he will probably deport me.”
“Then you believe he has some trick on hand too?”
“I’m sure of it. He is in constant communication with Government.
Beardmore and his clerks come to him every day”--Beardmore was the
Commissioner’s private secretary, and a man after his chief’s own
heart, of the type that considers it has successfully surmounted a
crisis when it has drawn up a state-paper on the subject, and has no
inconvenient yearnings after energetic action--“and he is busy with
them for hours, concocting a report on the state of the frontier, I
suppose. When that is finished, we may expect the blow.”
“What is it that you expect exactly? A friend of mine at headquarters
tells me there’s a persistent rumour----”
“That they intend to withdraw the subsidy, and cut loose from Nalapur?
Just so. And that means the deluge for us. The blessed word
Non-intervention will bring about the need for intervention, as
usual.”
“Our people will rise?”
“Not at first. Bahram Khan will probably remove his uncle quietly, and
in order to still any unpleasant rumours, encourage raids on us, which
will serve the further purpose of awakening the appetite for blood and
loot. The Sardars will be got to believe that we have only drawn back
in order to advance better, and that their one chance is to make the
first move. They will cross the border, and our people will join
them.”
“And we shall be thankful for the fort? North, in view of all this,
what do you say to sending the ladies down to Bab-us-Sahel for a
while?”
“I don’t know,” answered Dick hesitatingly. “I thought of suggesting
to my wife that she should go down there and do some shopping.”
“But you fancied she’d see through it? Probably. She was born and bred
here, and knows the weather-signs as well as you do. What’s the good
of trying to throw dust in her eyes? Put it to her plainly that, as
things are, you would feel much happier if she was away, and she’ll go
like a shot. Your sister and my Flora will go with her, and they’ll be
a pleasant party.”
“She won’t like going when there’s no sign of danger, and it might
precipitate the crisis, too. Perhaps when Burgrave launches his
thunderbolt----”
“If you could only get him to escort the ladies down at once, we might
pull through yet.”
“No fear,” said Dick bitterly, “until he’s done his worst.”