Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/186

Rh misfortunes. Yes, Olivia," he continued, as she looked inquiringly into his face, "you misjudged me once before, and you were sorry for it afterwards. So I hope it may be again, and yet — but no: I was going to say that if it would be any consolation to you to think ill of me I should be willing to have it so, but I cannot bring myself to say that. But why trouble you with my thoughts and feelings? I see you in this terrible difficulty and distress, and am unable to help you. That is sufficient bitterness."

Olivia stepped towards him and laid her hand upon his arm. "Forgive me again," she said in a low beseeching tone which thrilled through his heart; "you have always been a true friend, and I am an ungrateful undeserving woman; but if you knew how wretched and broken-down my husband is, I am sure you would excuse my injustice. And I dare say you are right — I am so bewildered, I know not what is right or what is wrong — but it seems very hard." And she turned to go away, while the large tears started in her dark eyes, and rolled down her pale cheeks. But Yorke saw that she staggered in her walk, and was far too weak to make the journey back on foot, and insisted on her resting while his buggy was got ready for her, and he hurried out to the stable to hasten the operation, hardly daring to trust himself any longer in her presence.

This was the second time, he thought, as he helped in nervous haste to put the harness on the horse, that she has been under my roof. The first time how it set my heart dancing for joy, and how I dreamt of a second visit as being almost too great happiness! and now it has come, and in what a way! She is sitting there, and I am actually keeping out of her way. For at sight of her tears his resolution had almost failed him, and he had been asking himself whether it would indeed be so great a breach of honour to take out the fatal letter and tear it up in her presence.

He drove the carriage up to the veranda steps, and alighting, handed Olivia in and drove off, the groom hanging on behind after the fashion of his class. It was now dusk, the time affected by Anglo-Indians for taking the air, and a passer-by might have set them down for a domestic couple on their accustomed evening drive; but the road to Kirke's house lay at the back of the station, and they met no one. No words were exchanged between them; and short though was the distance, Yorke had time to ponder on the strangeness of the situation, and to reflect how once it had been the dream of his life that Olivia should be driving through Mustaphabad, a wife, and sitting by his side. Now that dream was realized, and in what a way! She was sitting in his carriage by his side, but another man's wife and the mother of another man's child!

Soon the entrance gate of Kirke's house was reached, and Yorke, pulling up the horse, broke the silence by saying, "I will leave you here; my man will lead the horse up to the door," — and got down. He stood, hat in hand, beside the carriage while the groom stepped to the horse's head, and looked up at Olivia. She held out her hand, and smiling sadly, but with something of the old look of former years, wished him good-bye. Yorke took the proffered hand in his for an instant, and then turning away walked back, unwilling to weaken the recollection of her kindly parting by another word.

A few days later, just as all the officers who were nominated to form the court had arrived at the station — for there was not a sufficiency of officers of the needful rank in garrison at Mustaphabad, and several were summoned from a distance — and while all the residents were in a state of expectancy, and the officers of the regiment, feeling keenly the disgrace which had fallen on it, hardly showed their faces in public, an order was received from army headquarters to suspend the opening of proceedings; and the curiosity which this order evoked remained unsatisfied for two or three days, till an announcement appeared in the Gazette to the effect that Brevet-Colonel Rupert Kirke, C.B., had been permitted to retire from the service. Kirke himself, it appeared, had applied to be allowed to do so, and the application had been forwarded to government from headquarters, with a strong recommendation that it should be acceded to on the score of his distinguished service; and also that, as he had not served long enough for a pension, he should be granted the half-pay of his regimental rank of captain — half-pay as an institution being unknown to the Indian army, and each recipient requiring a special decision in his favour.

Public opinion endorsed the decision; for notwithstanding the natural disappointment felt at being balked of the expected excitement of a long court-martial on a distinguished officer, the general 