"

"I think not. I wish I could leave it to your discretion, love, but a
fine tact is not one of your shining virtues, is it?"

"No, ma'am." James Antony was not at all aggrieved. "To tell the
truth without fear or favour is enough for me."

"Then say nothing. Stay--could you contrive to intimate that Sir
Arthur and his lady will be among the company? That should serve to
prepare the young man's mind."

"I imagine I am capable of that, my dear."

And in truth, James Antony made the announcement with so much emphasis,
and in so meaning a tone, that Gerrard would have been dull indeed had
he missed its significance. Before it came he had been fighting
against the duty of accepting Mrs Antony's invitation, but now his
opposition collapsed suddenly. The rage for charades, which had
devastated English society for ten years or more, prevailed also in
India, and "Charades and Music" were promised in the corner of this
evening's card. The host spoke his mind quite frankly on the nature of
the entertainment, which he termed "a set of young fools dressing up
and acting silly questions for old fools to answer," and assured
Gerrard that he thought no worse of him for holding back. By way of
building a bridge for his retreat, however, he informed him that no
sight or sound of the charades could reach the _dufter_, and he wished
he himself could spend the evening there with him in peace and
quietness. On receiving the tardy acceptance he departed hastily, much
pleased with the results of his diplomacy--which would hardly have been
the case had he been able to read the young man's mind. One thing had
been plain to Gerrard from the first moment in which he realised fully
what Charteris's death would mean to him. It set an absolute barrier
between Honour and himself. He could no more take advantage of Bob's
removal from the field by an accident than if he had slain him with his
own hand. Having assured himself of this night and day, in waking and
dreaming and semi-delirious moments, it had become such an immutable
fact that he felt it was time to make Honour aware of it. He felt an
unaccountable pang on realising that she would immediately perceive its
reasonableness.

His first visitor in his retirement that evening was not Honour, but
Mrs Jardine, who believed honestly that she had a special gift for
cheering the sick. Gerrard had always been her favourite of Honour's
two persistent suitors, and though she could