*IX.*
At the end of the twelve months Stewart got a letter from Trevelyan.
He smiled a bit curiously as he tore open the travel worn flap. Hewondered what Robert had to say for himself or what he wanted. It wasthe first letter he had received since Robert had been ordered to India,but he laughed genuinely in the silence of the deserted club room, atthe opening, and characteristic words:
"This is a damnable hole! It is hot as—well I won’t swear any more—butit is hotter than I ever imagined a place could be on the _surface_ ofthe earth. We are miles from any decent civilization, and how you cantalk decently about the natives and the native regiments, staggers me!I don’t trust ’em, and what’s more I doubt very much if they hold me inany higher regard. But what is the good of writing so to you. You knowwhat Indian service is. Your station was either a good deal better thanmine, or you have a lot more back bone than I have. The first ideamaking me jealous, and the last not being conducive to self-respect,there don’t seem to be any choice! To move requires a strenuous effort.The life is stagnation. It is a living death and the death numbness iscreeping into my veins. They tell me that the natives have not been soquiet for years, and most of the officers and men wish they’d stir up abit and give them some trouble. I don’t. I don’t want trouble. I don’tbelieve I could fight if I had to! Damned odd, isn’t it, when my bloodused to boil and my head throb queer, when I was a little shaver at homeand there was danger around? I guess I wasn’t cut out for the Service,after all. Mactier would wonder— * * * I think I’m going mad. As youmay have caught on I am writing all this with a purpose; for it is onlyfair for you to know what this station is, and I’m asking more than oneman ought of another, but if you’d get transferred out here— Therewouldn’t be any trouble about the technical part of it, for theEngineers are needed bad for surveying. Your last letter said somethingabout your getting a commission in the Gordon Highlanders—if you couldonly come here instead—I suppose I am selfish, but I can’t get a grip onthings. If—"
Stewart looked up from the letter, toward the window and thestreet—seriously. Then he went over to the window and sat down in a bigchair and leaned forward, still looking out. The noise of the passingcarriages and the stir of the passing crowd crept in to meet the silenceof the empty reading room. He sat motionless, heedless alike of thenoise and the stillness. Once he thought of Cary, and his face changedswiftly.
Then he went back to the letter and finished it, and later he re-readit, and folded it, and put it in his vest pocket. Then he went back tohis old occupation of looking out of the window.
The crowd was no longer one big indistinct blur, and he was vaguelyconscious that he saw his mother’s carriage among the others coming downthe street. It came nearer and he could see that his sister was in it.There was a girl sitting beside her. The girl was Cary.
* * * * *
It was a week before Stewart called again at the lodgings. Cary firmlyexpected him the second day; grew bewildered as the evening of thefourth came and went without bringing him; on the fifth grew anxious andon the sixth wrote to him. Calling on his family just then for news wasout of the question. They had gone to Brighton for a week.
He came to her the day her letter reached him.
"I would scold you," the girl said, "if it were not for these. Younever forget my violets."
She buried her face in the purple bloom, before she fastened the bunchon her dress.
"I have left the order with the florist," said Stewart quietly. "Hewill send you the violets every week, and when they are gone, I havetold him about your roses. I am going away."
She looked up quickly from the flowers she had just fastened in herdress.
"For long?"
"I think so—yes."
"Where are you going?"
Stewart pulled at his gloves.
"India," he said briefly.
"You have received your orders?"
"Yes. I asked for them."
Cary went up to him and pulled him by the sleeve.
"I—don’t—quite—understand," she said. "I—is it the Highlanders?"
He shook his head.
"No, it’s Rob. He is just about mad enough to blow his brains out. I’mgoing to him."
"He’s sent for you?"
"He’s _asked_ me to come."
Stewart sat with her in the little room all that long afternoon, andthey had tea together, and they watched the sunset from the windowstogether, as they had done almost every day that year. It would seemstrange to drink tea alone and watch the sunset by herself, thoughtCary.
"If you would sometimes write—" he suggested once.
"Of course, I will write," she retorted quickly.
When the twilight came, he left.
_End of Book One._
*BOOK TWO*
*THE BREAK IN THE CLAY*