Colonel Grey led Mrs Lawless into a room on the right of the hall and
rang the bell. He ordered wine, which he insisted on his companion
drinking. He also requested that two bedrooms should be in readiness
and a meal prepared. The ordinary affairs of life could not be
neglected even if the issues at stake were distressingly serious. The
Colonel was feeling more settled in mind since he was in possession of
the facts. There was no immediate cause for alarm, he decided; and
sought to hearten Mrs Lawless with his sanguine views. But though she
appeared to listen she was too obviously nervous to attend to what he
said. She sipped her wine, sitting by the fluttering curtains near the
open window, looking out at the sunshine.
"Perhaps I ought not to have come," she said once, and appeared while
looking at nothing in particular to be watching the road with grave
intentness. "I don't think he'll consent to see me."
She was remembering how recently he had said to her that if she sent for
him again he would not come. She had not sent, but her presence there
amounted to the same thing.
And then after a while the door opened and he came in. The Colonel
uttered a sudden exclamation.
"My dear fellow!" he cried in astonishment, his manner charged with
grave solicitude. "My dear fellow! Is this wise?"
Mrs Lawless sprang up from her chair, but he put out a hand and
motioned her back, and with her startled eyes on his leaden face, she
sank down again without speaking. Lawless took a seat.
"I don't know how you came to hear of this," he said. "I didn't intend
it should get about. They're making more of it than they need. In a
few days I should have been back in Cape Town."
He looked inquiringly at the Colonel.
"You've seen Hayhurst, I suppose?"
"Yes. He delivered the letters safely." He sat forward and stared at
the ghastly suffering face. "He gave me a fairly graphic history of
their recovery. The whole circumstances were a huge surprise,--huge.
It was a masterly undertaking. The service you have rendered is
incalculable. When the time comes we shall know how to thank you more
adequately, in the meanwhile you have our very earnest gratitude; and I
can only express my sincere regret that the result should be so
disastrous for you."
Colonel Grey advanced his hand. To his surprise Lawless refused to take
it.
"Disastrous! Yes," he answered. "Letters that are of a nature to lend
themselves to blackmailing purposes are not worth the risk of a man's
life--and character. I suppose you might argue that I've boasted I hold
life cheaply, and you doubtless consider I have no character to lose.
Confess now," he added, in response to the other's hastily uttered
protest, "that until those letters were safe in your hands you
entertained a suspicion that I might misuse them?"
The Colonel sought for words and sought vainly. He was far too ruggedly
honest to deny the charge. After a moment or two of silence he tacitly
admitted it.
"Most men are liable to mistakes," he said. "And... I suppose I was
prejudiced."
The man lying back in the easy-chair smiled drily.
"I am so unfortunate as to prejudice most people unfavourably. A
profligate adventurer can scarcely expect to do otherwise."
An almost inaudible sound broke from Zoe Lawless' lips. He did not look
at her but continued in the same bitter strain to the pain and
embarrassment of both his hearers.
"For every offence of which I've been guilty I've had to pay to the
uttermost farthing. On appearance I've been convicted of sins I haven't
committed. It's the luck, I suppose, of the man who is marked for
failure from the beginning of things."
"I can understand," Colonel Grey said, making ready allowance for his
mood, "your resentment of certain injuries. I offer you my frank
apologies for the very unworthy suspicions I have entertained. But if I
have harboured doubts of you, I have also had moments when I have felt
that those doubts were unjustified. I assert, in spite of your morbid
imagining, that you more readily inspire confidence than distrust."
"Then how comes it that I failed in inspiring you with confidence?"
"It was probably," Colonel Grey began, and stopped, looking with some
pity at the haggard face. "Really, my dear fellow," he said, "is it
wise to continue this painful subject?"
"Why not?" The man in the chair sat straighter and pulled himself
together with an effort. "I've a fancy somehow," he said, "for having
the matter out... You've had a down on me ever since you knew I fought
against my own side in the Boer war. It's natural, of course--most
people would feel as you do about it. And yet I don't regret it--even
now."
"That's an old story," the Colonel said. "Why revive it?"
"I've a feeling I should like to speak of it. I've never explained my
motive--no one would understand, or sympathise with it, if I did. In
your place, reversing the circumstances, I should feel as you do about
it. But when a man has been kicked out of the Service for cowardice,
there's something he owes to himself as well as to his country. I had
to prove my nature for my own satisfaction. If they'd given me a chance
in the ranks I shouldn't have fought for the Boers. But I had to face
the bullets again... I had to disprove for my personal satisfaction
that quality of unaccountable fear that forced me to retreat in a
dangerous and important crisis. God knows what sudden and uncontrolled
impulse governed me on that occasion! ... I experienced that same cold
terror once again when, unarmed, I faced one of my own Tommies with a
fixed bayonet in his hand. I can feel the horror of that terror now--
the mad and well-nigh uncontrollable impulse to turn my back and run.
But the motive that had led me to join the fighting proved stronger than
my fear. I went for him with my hands; and the horror left me, as a
nightmare terror leaves a sleeper when he wakes... That is the history
of this scar on my face."
He paused, pressed his hand to his brow as if weary, and then resumed
with a sort of dogged determination to justify himself,--to make these
two people, who both in their hearts he knew condemned utterly what he
had felt to be a legitimate means of correcting a base tendency before
it became confirmed in him as an incorrigible fault, understand in a
sense,--see and feel with him. It mattered to him so tremendously, the
opinion of these two silent listeners, the one who sat with crossed
knees, watching him intently, the other with her troubled eyes downcast,
looking upon the ground. And both, he felt, judging him,--condemning
him.
"You'll think it at one with the rest, no doubt," he said; "but I don't
regret the thing I did which all Englishmen abhor. I know now that I
can face death without flinching. I conquered fear. The knowledge
gives me all the satisfaction necessary to qualify the odium of the term
traitor. It's not the right way to look at the matter, perhaps; but
that's how it is."
"It's not the right spirit--no?" The Colonel spoke gruffly. "No man is
justified in sacrificing honour and duty to his own ends. I recognise
that your object was not altogether unworthy. But as a soldier you had
no choice."
Mrs Lawless looked up in silent appeal at the speaker. Then abruptly
she rose and stood with her back to the room, facing the window.
Lawless rose also. His face was grey, and the skin seemed to have
tightened over the bones as it does after a sharp or a long illness.
Colonel Grey had seen men look as he did who had fallen on the field; he
had seen them too, lots of them, in hospital.
Lawless put out a hand gropingly. He was tired. He had better get back
to bed. It was all finished. He had not succeeded in convincing them.
They saw things from a different level; they couldn't get down to him.
"I daresay you're right," he said uncertainly. "Anyway, it hardly seems
to matter. I'm derelict... and done for."
Mrs Lawless turned quickly. He did not see the swift rush of pity that
suffused her face, the tears that streamed from her eyes. He was not
conscious that she sprang towards him, that it was her arm about him
that saved him from falling when, having used up his last reserve of
strength in attempting to gain the door, he stumbled over a mat in his
progress, and fell forward a collapsed and pitiful object, with drawn
and shrunken features, and pallid lips.
The Colonel was at her side in an instant.
"Don't be alarmed," he said. "He's only fainted. We'd better get him
back to bed. He ought never to have left it... The folly of it!"
"I ought to have come," she whispered, sobbing. "You see--I did no
good... The sight of me distressed him. I might have guessed..."
She knelt on the floor beside him and pillowed his head on her knee. It
gave her infinite pleasure merely to hold him in her arms against the
bosom that had hungered for him so long. But oh! the pity of it! to see
him reduced, this strong man, to a mere helpless wreck. She drew him
closer to her and her tears fell on his face.
"I believe he's dying," she murmured... "And he'll never know how
greatly I loved him... Why do we keep these things to ourselves till
too late?"
The Colonel rang for assistance. To his infinite relief it was the
schoolmaster who came to the door when it opened. In his assumption of
authority Mr Burton seemed a tower of strength. He took in the
situation at a glance, and, unaccountably, appeared not in the least
surprised. He assumed prompt and resolute command. Between them he and
the Colonel got the patient back to his room and into bed. Mr Burton,
anticipating something of the sort when Lawless insisted on dressing,
had sent for the doctor, and the medical man arrived very shortly, and
standing at the bedside looked with grave dissatisfaction at his
patient.
"What's the meaning of this?" he asked concisely.
And Mr Burton explained.
While they conferred and acted in the sick-room, Mrs Lawless remained
outside the door, listening for any sound from within, her face tense
with anxiety, and her eyes tormented. After a while the door opened and
the Colonel came forth, and seeing her there took her by the arm and led
her back to the sitting-room.
"They'll be some time in there," he said. "You can't stand about
waiting. You shall see him before he leaves."
"Was he better?" she asked, not heeding him.
"He'd come round--Yes."
She sat down at a small table, and stretched her arms upon it, and
looked at him miserably.
"I have felt all along," she said, "that that would be the end. It's
his life, Colonel Grey, that he's given--for a packet of letters. A
packet of letters! ... Oh! dear God!" she cried, and dropped her face
on her arms and broke down again and wept.
"And what is his reward?" she flashed suddenly, looking up at him
through her tears. "He came to you,--to you--I don't know why, unless
it's because you are a soldier and he felt that as a soldier you judged
him--full of a human appeal, and you crushed ruthlessly the glimmering
hope he cherished of justifying himself... I saw the hope slain in his
eyes, heard it die out of his voice. It was the cruellest thing you
could have done. You knew, being a soldier, what your judgment meant."
Colonel Grey flushed quickly. He stood before her awkward,
hesitating,--accused, judged, condemned, and powerless to defend
himself. It was the very devil to be censured with quiet vehemence by a
beautiful weeping woman, and be unable to retort. He felt that in a
measure he deserved her censure. His conscience was not entirely free
from reproach. He had realised the direct appeal in Lawless' attempt at
self-justification, had recognised, as he had grudgingly admitted,
extenuating circumstances, but if the man had been dying before him he
doubted that he could have concealed his disapproval of conduct that no
soldier could possibly defend. He sympathised with the man; in many
ways he admired him; but the crime of treachery must ever remain a crime
in his eyes. It was inexcusable, unjustifiable.
"I think, Mrs Lawless, that your husband, having been a soldier
himself, will understand what you, perhaps, cannot," he said. "I'm glad
he explained as he did; it gave one an insight into the motives that can
move a man to commit unworthy and seemingly inexplicable acts. I have
both liking and respect for him apart from that grave offence, which I
cannot in sincerity condone, though I appreciate his reason as he gave
it. He is a brave man guilty of a serious mistake."
"Ah! if we all had to pay so dearly for our mistakes!" she said, and
brushed away the tears impatiently as they flowed freely over her
cheeks. "But I don't know why I reproach you. I felt once as you feel
about it--and I let him see it. That was the beginning of our
estrangement. I see things differently now. I see points of honour
differently. Human beings can't be classed and judged by a code. It is
necessary to make distinctions. The individual has direct and special
claims which you men drilled in a system don't understand."
"The judgment of human affairs is beyond human comprehension," Colonel
Grey said quietly.
"That is one way of evading responsibility," she replied. "But we women
understand these things--the mothers of the race. Even the childless
woman is a mother, for the maternal instinct is the birthright of her
sex. We mothers realise the needs of the children. Hugh was my child,
and I allowed the mother-instinct to be swamped in the pride of the
wife. I adopted the Army system, and judged him by your standard. I
wasn't true to my sex... And so we drifted apart... But he never
attempted to justify himself to me. I wonder whether, if he had, I
should have understood."
He walked across to the window and stood there looking out. He felt
distressed and troubled and extremely sorry for this woman in her
anxiety with her burden of self-reproach.
"It is so hard," the sorrowful voice went on tearfully, "to be facing
this with the memory of all the years that have been wasted. If I had
stood by him in his dark hour..."
Further utterance was stopped by the rush of tears that choked her. She
dropped her head on her arms again, and for a while the only audible
sounds were those made by her bitter weeping.
It was a distinct relief to Colonel Grey when the door opened to admit
the doctor. He entered abruptly, closing the door behind him, an
undersized, delicate-looking man, with an unattractive manner at
variance with a pair of sympathetic eyes. The sympathetic eyes took in
the scene rapidly. They were accustomed to scenes, and the sight of a
woman's tears failed to embarrass him. He took a chair, drew it up to
the table opposite Zoe Lawless, and regarded her attentively as he sat
down. She had raised her face at his entrance, and was vainly
endeavouring to dry her tears.
"Don't mind me," he said bluntly. "Crying is often a relief. Let it
come. You are Mr Lawless' wife, I understand?"
She nodded, not trusting her voice, and looked at him appealingly. What
was he going to tell her, this man in whose power it lay to pass
sentence of death, or hold out hope of life?
"I understand further that you have had an interview with him which
seems to have considerably excited him?"
"I have seen him... Yes," she faltered, her eyes filling anew. She
stretched out a hand to him impulsively. "Tell me how he is," she
entreated. "Is he going to die?"
"I hope not," he answered, but neither the words nor his manner of
uttering them greatly reassured her. "He is very ill. You saw that."
She nodded again.
"He'll be worse before he's better. We have to send for trained nurses.
The care he is having at present is inadequate."
"I'll nurse him," she cried eagerly, jealously. "Oh! let me nurse him.
It is something that I can do."
He looked at her strangely. For a second he hesitated, then he said,
very slowly and deliberately, with his grave eyes on her face:
"I'm going to be very unkind; but I'm sure you'll recognise the
necessity for my veto when you consider how unfortunate in effect your
presence has already been. You must not think of nursing your husband,
Mrs Lawless. You must not, unless he asks for you, enter the room.
Sick people have strange fancies," he added in pity for her wrung and
suffering face. "It is often necessary to make these unnatural
restrictions."
She stared at him with an unspeakable anguish in her eyes.
"They'll call me," she said, "if--They won't let him die without
allowing me to see him?"
"Oh dear! no," he answered quickly. "Of course not--no!"
He rose and held out a sympathetic hand.
"We won't talk of dying yet awhile. He's got a splendid constitution.
He ought to pull through. But we won't risk any further excitement.
Except for Mr Burton and the nurses, I don't wish anyone to go into his
room. Fresh faces set the mind working, and we must keep him tranquil
and composed."
"A very unpleasant duty," he remarked to the Colonel, who accompanied
him outside. "I am sorry for the wife; she takes it badly. But in
cases of sickness it is the patient we have to consider."
"How's it going with him?" the Colonel asked bluntly.
"At this stage, impossible to say. It will be touch and go. But as I
dislike losing my patients, I never admit the go until the hammer
falls."
The Colonel looked after him as he walked away in the sunshine, feeling
oddly discouraged, and very disinclined to re-enter the sitting-room.
When, bracing himself to face it, he turned the door-handle and went in,
he found that Mrs Lawless had dried her eyes, and was sitting very
quiet and entirely composed, looking out of the window.