Banked Fires Part 37

"In honour bound to punish himself by rewarding her dishonesty?"

"He shared it."

"Hers was the greater sin. She tempted him. Think of her age and his, her experience of life and his!--I don't see it!"

"Men have a special code of honour, it seems."

"Tommy, it is a case of kidnapping. Jack's only a foolish, weak boy, deserving of punishment, but it isn't fair that the punishment should be life-long!"

"He is pretty sick of himself, I can vouch for that."

Jack's undoing was a source of depression to Honor Bright, and the question of how to save him was with her continually.

It was a cold day with a pleasant warmth in the suns.h.i.+ne as Honor swung along the roads on foot, her gun under her arm, and a bag of cartridges slung from her shoulder. She was dressed in a Norfolk jacket and short skirt of tweed, with top boots as a protection from snakes, and her free and graceful carriage was a beautiful thing to see. So thought the doctor as he watched her from behind a pillar in his bungalow verandah.

He had returned by the last train the previous night a few days before he was expected, and, as yet, no one besides his servants and the _loc.u.m_ knew of it.

When Honor had pa.s.sed he began making hasty preparations to go out. His shot gun was taken down from a rack, examined, cleaned, and oiled afresh; cartridges were dropped into his pocket; thick boots suitable to muddy places were pulled on, accompanied by much impatience and a few swear words.

Would he have the motor? Yes--no! The motor could be taken by a mechanic to a certain point by the Panipara Jhil and left there for his convenience.

In the meantime, Honor tramped through the fields taking all the short cuts she knew, and was soon on the fringe of the gra.s.s in complete enjoyment of the wildness of the scene and its solitude. The slanting rays of the morning sun filtering through the trees, cast checkered lights upon the lilies and weeds that floated on the water. Little islands dotted the surface, covered with rushes and date palms, the wild plum, and the _babul_--all growing thickly together. The air was full of the odour of decaying vegetation and the noise of jungle fowl, teal, and duck. The latter could be seen fluttering their pinions among the lotus flowers, and bobbing about on the surface of the water, thoroughly at home in their native element; occasionally a flock would rise and settle again not far from the same spot, vigilant with the instinct of approaching danger. In the far distance, Panipara village could be seen, its dark, thatched roofs seeming to fringe the _jhil_ at its farther verge.

Honor filled the breach of her light gun with a couple of No. 8 cartridges, and warily skirted the brink. In places the pools were so shallow that a man might have waded knee deep from island to island; but the soft mud was treacherous, and flat-bottomed canoes were generally hired at Panipara by sportsmen who went duck-shooting. As Honor was after snipe, she kept to the banks and picked her way fearlessly along the tangled paths, her high boots a protection from thorns and snakes.

Birds sang l.u.s.tily in the trees; the throaty trill of the tufted bulbul sounding inexpressibly sweet,--the thyial, too, like a glorified canary, made music for her by the way.

For nearly an hour Honor wandered over the marshy ground of both banks, often imagining she heard footsteps and rustlings among the long gra.s.s that screened the view. The sounds ceased when she paused to listen, so she concluded that her imagination had played her false. At length, just as she was beginning to despair of success, a couple of snipe rose like a flash from almost under her feet, and were gone before she could raise her gun to her shoulder. Immediately she was startled by the sound of a shot fired somewhere in her neighbourhood! She had no idea that any one else was out shooting that morning. She looked around. Beyond a thin veil of smoke hanging over the water, there was nothing to be seen.

Who could it be, but a native _s.h.i.+kari_?--for there were a few in the District licensed to carry firearms, who supplied the residents of the Station with birds for their tables. Satisfied with her theory, she pressed on a little farther and was rewarded by another chance at a snipe. As the bird headed for a clump of bushes, she fired, and simultaneously with her shot there came an involuntary cry--a sharp exclamation of pain, and for a second she was rooted to the spot, forgetting everything but the fear that someone at hand had been hit.

Dropping her gun in the gra.s.s, she ran forward in dismay, brushed aside the screen of weeds and jungle, and came face to face with Captain Dalton leaning against the trunk of a tree, holding his wrist.

"Oh!--have I hurt you?" she cried in an intensity of alarm rather than of surprise at finding him there, when she believed him at least some hundreds of miles away.

Dalton never looked at her, nor replied, but releasing his wrist, allowed the blood to drip to the ground from a trivial wound. A stray shot from the many in the cartridge had scratched the skin upon a vein, and the occasion was serving him well.

But out of all proportion to the injury was his pallor and the emotion that swept his face and held him quivering and tongue-tied.

"What can I do?" Honor cried in her distress. The sight of blood was enough to rend her tender heart; and to know that it had been shed by an act of hers, shook her to the foundations of her being.

Dalton produced a handkerchief in silence and pa.s.sing it to her, allowed her to bandage the wound as well as she could. He was concerned only with watching the beautiful, sunburnt fingers that moved tremblingly to aid him, or the sympathetic face that bent over the task.

When the bandage was completed, their eyes met, and the same moment Honor was in his arms, clasped close to his breast while he murmured his adoration.

"I love you!--my G.o.d! how I love you! and I want you so! Oh, my precious little girl!--my Honey--my love!"

Honor asked no questions, but welcomed, with a sob of joy, the gift of love that flooded her heart to overflowing. She clung to his neck with loving abandonment and yielded her lips to his generously. With her great nature, she could do nothing by halves, so gave of her love with no grudging hand.

"Since when have you loved me, my Sweet?" he asked in tones that were music to her ears.

"From the moment you kissed my hand and called me 'brave'!"

"And yet you plunged that dagger in my heart when you said in my hearing--'I have no interest in Captain Dalton'?"

Honor recalled her conversation with Joyce and blushed. "It was not true!" she confessed.

"I deserved it--and more!" he said humbly with suffering in his eyes.

"And when did _you_ begin to--care?" she asked shyly.

"From the moment I looked into your eyes at my bungalow, and saw heroism, truth, and purity."

It was sweet hearing, though she was convinced that he exaggerated her qualities. "Why then did you hide it so long?"

"I was fighting the biggest fight of my life."

"And have you won?"

"Won?" he laughed harshly. "No. I have lost, but it's worth it," kissing her defiantly. "Can you guess how much I love you? When I was ill I used to dream of you. I even thought you came to me and said you loved me!"

"I did. I was beside you, but you were delirious with fever, and I was sure afterwards that what you said meant nothing."

"You were there? I often wondered about it, but dared not ask for fear of disillusionment. The dream was so dear!"

"And when you recovered, you never tried to see me!"

"I was fighting my big fight which I have lost," he returned recklessly.

"So I tried to teach myself to forget."

"And you couldn't?"

"Oh, no. It was too late!" she sighed happily.

"Blessed fidelity! and now you confess that you love me. Say it!"

"I love you!" A few minutes pa.s.sed in silence while he demonstrated his transports of delight in true lover fas.h.i.+on.

"When you were angry with me over Elsie Meek's case, I went mad and did a succession of hideous things. How can you love such a monster?"

Honor drew his face closer and laid her cheek to his.

"I hated everybody--I even tried to hate you, but it was impossible. I resented the happiness of other men. I tried my best to break up a man's home after partaking of his hospitality. Do you care to kiss me now?"

Honor kissed him tenderly. "I watched it all with such suffering!"

"You did? G.o.d forgive me! Did you know that it is not to my credit that Mrs. Meredith is an honest woman today?"