CHAPTER IX

"They're going!" said Bethune, triumphantly. "Their fellow has patched up the motor; it will take them as far as the station at least."

Harry English, pacing the little study much after the manner of Muhammed the night before, halted abruptly.

"They ought to have gone an hour ago," he answered. And, when he looked like that, for a certainty Captain English wore no pleasant countenance. "What has he been doing?"

The relaxation of the muscles, which was Bethune's usual substitute for a smile, came over his face.

"First, he's been trying to persuade Aspasia to go away with him. And secondly, he's been reproaching her for her unfilial behaviour in refusing to leave us; and thirdly, he has been bestowing his avuncular curse upon her and repudiating her for ever and ever. All this naturally took some time."

A flash of pleasure swept across the other's gloom.

"So the girl sticks to us. That is right," he said. Then the frown came back. "You've warned them to be quiet, I hope, with their infernal car?"

"I've told the chauffeur if he makes a sound more than he can help, he'll have me to deal with. I made the fellow swear to wait for them halfway down the avenue. Lady Aspasia's a good sort too, take her all in all—has her head screwed on the right way. She'll keep the old man in order."

English took a couple of turns again, and halted, his head bent. There were voices passing in the hall without: Sir Arthur's querulous tones, Lady Aspasia's unmistakable accents, strident even under her breath. Bethune went to the window.

"There they go," said he, presently. "She's giving him her arm. By George," he went on, "she, for one, won't be anxious to dispute your identity, Harry!"

The other had sat down by the fire and was gazing into the flames after his old attitude. Bethune, at the window, remained gazing upon the departure of the undesired guests. In a second or two he broke forth again:

"The motor's jibbing! Good Lord, they'll have it into the gate—now into the apple-tree!" He gave a single note of mirth. "Lady Aspasia is holding down Sir Arthur by main force. Of course he wants to teach the chauffeur how to do it. But she knows better. By George," ejaculated Bethune, in a prophetic burst, "she's the very woman for him! Ah, here comes Miss Aspasia, hatless, to offer her opinion. I'd give something to hear her; she does not want them back upon us—I warrant." There was a pause. "They're off! Thank God, they're off!" Still the man lingered by the window.

Aspasia was waving her handkerchief ironically after the departing company, as the car proceeded down the avenue, fitfully, at a speed which (as she subsequently remarked) "would have made any self-respecting cart-horse smile."

When she turned to re-enter the house, Bethune had the vision of her rosy face, all brightening with smiles. The interchange of mute greetings, the swift impression of her fair light youth as she flashed by, left him lost in a muse.

Harry English stirred in his chair and, on the moment, his friend was at his side.

"They're gone," repeated he, rubbing his hands.

The other made no direct reply; but, stooping forward, picked up one of the fragments of paper that had escaped Bethune's hand in the morning's work of destruction.

He looked at it for a few seconds, abstractedly, and then laughed.

"So you were writing a life of me, old man?" said he.

Bethune stood, looking as if he had been convicted of the most abject folly. And English lightly flicked the scrap into the blaze:

"The life that counts is the life that no other soul can know," said he.

But he had no sooner said the words than he corrected himself, and his voice took that altered note which marked any reference to his wife.

"At least," he said, "no other soul but one."

Those friends, who were so much to each other, in speech communicated less than the most ordinary acquaintances. Bethune stood, in his wooden way, looking down at the armchair. Just now he had something to say, and it was difficult to him. At last, pointing to the hearth, as if he still beheld the fruit of his labour of friendship being consumed in it, he spoke, awkwardly:

"It did its work, though."

English flashed an upward look, half humorous, half searching.

"What did its work?"

"The—my—oh, the damned Life!"

The other man pondered over the words a little while. Then, with a smile that had something almost tender in it, he looked up at his friend again:

"I am afraid you will have to explain a little more, Ray."

Bethune shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The colour mounted to his face. He stared down at English, wistfully.

"It's a bit hard to explain," he said, "yet I'd like you to know—that diary, those letters of yours, I had to have them, extracts of them, for the work, you see.... Well——"

Here came a pause of such length that English was fain to repeat:

"Well?"

Then Bethune blurted it out:

"She had never read them——"

"Ah!"

"She never wanted to read them. Oh!"—quickly, "it's not that she didn't care."

"You need not explain that."

English's head was bent. His voice was very quiet, but Bethune's whole being thrilled to the tumult he inarticularly felt in the other's soul. He half put out his hand to touch him, then drew it back.

"Go on with your story—with your own part of the story," said Harry.

"She did not want to read them," said Bethune. "I made her."

The husband offered no comment; and, drawing a long breath like a child, his friend went on:

"And when she read at last—oh! even I could see it—it was as if her heart broke."

Still the bent head, the hands clasped over the knees, the silence. Bethune could bear it no longer, and took courage to lay that touch of timid eager sympathy upon English's shoulder.

"Harry, I'm such a fool, I can't explain things."

"Oh, I understand," answered English then, in a deep vibrating voice. He rose suddenly and squared himself, drawing in the air in a long sigh. "Do you think I could misunderstand—her?"

Their looks met. There was a wonderful mixture of sweetness and sorrow on the face of him whom life and death had equally betrayed.

Suddenly they clasped hands, for the first time since their parting in the Baroghil passes. Then they stood awhile without speaking. Harry English once more fixing visions in the fire, and Bethune looking at his comrade.

For most of his years he had known no deeper affection than his friendship for this man. He had mourned him with a grief which, now to think on, seemed like a single furrow across the plain field of his life; and there he stood!

"Captain, my Captain..." said Raymond. His rough voice trembled, and he laughed loud to conceal it.

The other flashed round upon him with his rarely beautiful smile.

"Ah," said he, "it's like old times at last to hear you at your rags and tags of quotation again!"

There fell again between them the pause that to both was so eloquent.

Then, from the far distance, into their silence penetrated a faint uncouth sound: from the moorland road, the motor, carrying for ever out of their lives him who had had so much power upon them, and was now so futile a figure, seemed to raise a last impotent hoot.

Sir Arthur Gerardine was gone. Raymond rubbed his hands and smiled as since boyhood he had scarcely smiled.

"It is good," cried Harry, then, boyishly in his turn, "to see your nut-cracker grin once more, Ray. As Muhammed, I've looked for it many a time in vain—I thought I had lost my old sub."

*      *      *      *      *

"But there's one thing we must remember," said Bethune, suddenly earnest again, in the midst of the welcome relaxation. "We must remember the old fellow's threat. You will have a bit of a job to keep out of trouble with the powers that be, won't you, after Sir Arthur's meddling?"

The anxiety on his countenance was not reflected upon English's face.

"I shall have my own story to tell," he said, "and I think that I have knowledge of sufficient value to make me a persona grata in high quarters just now. They will be rather more anxious, I take it, to retain my services rather than dispense with them—in spite of Sir Arthur."

He broke off, his brow clouded again. He sighed heavily.

"But what does that matter?" he cried; "just now there is only one thing that matters in the whole world."