assailed on all
sides with matters of urgent importance, and he had not a moment to
devote to his own affairs. When at length it was possible for him to
consider himself at all, he felt that the accident had raised him out of
the narrow pettiness which threatened to submerge his soul; he was at
close quarters with malignant fate, and he had waged a desperate battle
with the cruel blindness of chance. He could only feel an utter scorn
for the people who bespattered him with base charges. For, after all,
his conscience was free.

When he wrote to Lucy, it never struck him that it was needful to refer
to the events that had preceded his departure from London, and his
letter was full of the strenuous agony of the past days. He told her how
they had fought hand to hand with death and had snatched the prey from
his grasp. In a second letter he told her what steps he was taking to
repair the damage that had been caused, and what he was doing for those
who were in immediate need. He would have given much to be able to write
down the feelings of passionate devotion with which Lucy filled him, but
with the peculiar shyness which was natural to him, he could not bring
himself to it. Of the accusation with which, the world was ringing, he
said never a word.

* * *

Lucy read his letters over and over again. She could not understand
them, and they seemed strangely indifferent. At that distance from the
scene of the disaster she could not realise its absorbing anxiety, and
she was bitterly disappointed at Alec's absence. She wanted his presence
so badly, and she had to bear alone, on her own shoulders, the full
weight of her trouble. When Macinnery's second letter appeared, Lady
Kelsey gave it to her without a word. It was awful. The whole thing was
preposterous, but it hung together in a way that was maddening, and
there was an air of truth about it which terrified her. And why should
Alec insist on this impenetrable silence? She had offered herself the
suggestion that political exigencies with regard to the states whose
spheres of influence bordered upon the territory which Alec had
conquered, demanded the strictest reserve; but this explanation soon
appeared fantastic. She read all that was said in the papers and found
that opinion was dead against Alec. Now that it was become a party
matter, his own side defended him; but in a half-hearted way, which
showed how poor the case was. And since all that could be urged in his
favo