"It isn’t, it isn’t!" sobbed Lucy. "You’ve got the excitement, your brother officers and—and the rest. You’re not left alone with nothing to do but think, as I shall be after to-morrow, for you must go then, I suppose. Oh, dearest, couldn’t you wait for just one more day, for my sake, Hector?"
"I—I’m afraid I must go to-night, Lucy," stammered Hector.
"To-night? Oh no, no, you can’t; you mustn’t go to-night. I—I couldn’t bear it, Hector."
"I must, dear; if I didn’t, they might put me under arrest for disobedience to orders. Think what might be said too, that brute O’Hagan, for instance."
"What does it matter about him? I come first. And you can’t go to-night. The road’s not safe. Those awful precipices."
"There’s no danger, Lucy, and, believe me, I must." Hector’s jaw set and his eyes hardened.
A long pause. Graeme looked at his watch. Quarter of an hour had already passed.
"Lucy, dear," he began again, "I don’t wish to hurry you, but Sir Reginald told me to say that he would start in half an hour;" and Lucy at once rose, except for her pale face and red eyes, to all appearances calm once more.
"Very well, Hector," she said in a level voice, "I will be ready. Tell Sir Reginald I won’t keep him waiting. I—I should like an hour or two at Shiraz, though, if you can wait so long. I want to see about your things."
"Oh, of course, dear, and, Lucy, you know, don’t you, that it’s not want of feeling on my part? I hate it as much as you do, probably more, only..."
"Yes, yes, but please leave me now, Hector, or I shan’t—shan’t. Oh, go—go."
She half pushed him out of the tent and closed the flap behind him.
"That fellow was right," muttered Hector, as some hours later he rode down the hill on his way to Baramoula, "who said soldiers ought not to be married. I wish to heaven I’d sent in my papers before I left England, as I wanted to; but she wouldn’t have it, said she wanted me to make a name for myself, and now the time’s come, it seems she doesn’t want it at all. No more do I, much rather stay behind with her. God, how cursedly miserable I feel, so much for love for a woman stirring a man’s ambition and making him keen to do things. It don’t, it takes all the heart out of him. Hullo, there’s Baramoula, now I wonder whether that fool ordered my tonga?" and shaking up his pony he rode on at a canter.