the facts. Bob Charteris was not literary in his tastes, and Honour,
with her heart awakened, had learnt to know that life was more than books.

As the time approached for Gerrard's return to active service, it struck
him that she had perceived her unconscious cruelty, and was endeavouring
to atone for it. He loved her the better for the thought, though it made
him all the more miserable, since the tenderness in her voice, the tears
he sometimes surprised in her eyes, must spring from a pity that was not
at all akin to love. No doubt, too, she was thinking of Charteris,
keeping the field in the rains, and extensively abused on all sides as
the cause of the war, and Gerrard would have liked to assure her that he
understood, and to prophesy a general revulsion of feeling when the Agpur
business had been brought to a successful conclusion. But apparently
sympathy was at a discount with Honour, for the slightest attempt to
approach the subject--even an honest effort to assure her that Bob's
safety should be his first care in the future, for her sake--brought back
at once the sense of constraint, and made her manner hard and impatient,
not to say snappish. Their final parting took place in public, but this
was Gerrard's own fault, for he could not trust himself alone with her.
He might have been a weak fool to hang about her for so long, but to
offer himself as a bearer of tender messages for Charteris was beyond
him. She was very pale, and seemed to find difficulty in speaking, and
he guessed at once that she was envying him his good fortune in seeing
her lover so soon. But his selfishness in refusing to volunteer as a
messenger was rightly punished, for Mrs Jardine, who had seen fit to
appear at the Residency to borrow a fancy-work pattern from Mrs Antony,
just as he was about to start, was not minded to leave things longer in
the uncertainty which had tried her so deeply.

"What! no message for poor Mr Charteris?" she inquired archly, as
Honour's hand touched Gerrard's to the accompaniment of a single murmured
word of farewell.

"Miss Cinnamond knows that I should feel honoured in carrying any message
of hers," he said stiffly.

Honour blushed red, though she looked annoyed. "Oh, give him my best
wishes, please!" she said lightly.

"Very distant and suitable, I'm sure!" muttered Mrs Jardine, much
disappointed, but Honour did not hear her.

"_You_ have not asked for any message--for yourself," she murmured,