The Truants Part 38

The incredulity had vanished from his face. Distress had replaced it.

"It is all true, no doubt," he went on, "but for the moment I don't understand it. Will you tell me where your camp is?"

"I will show you the way," said Warrisden.

"I think not. It will be better that we should not be seen together,"

Stretton said thoughtfully. "Will you give me the direction and go first? I will follow."

Warrisden's camp was pitched amongst trees a hundred yards from the western borders of the village. It stood in a garden of gra.s.s, enclosed with hedges. Thither Stretton found his way by a roundabout road, approaching the camp from the side opposite to Ain-Sefra. There was no one, at the moment, loitering about the spot. He walked into the garden. There were three tents pitched. Half a dozen mules stood picketed in a line, a little Barbary horse lay on the gra.s.s, some Algerian muleteers were taking their ease, and outside the chief tent a couple of camp chairs were placed. Warrisden came forward as Stretton entered the garden.

"Sit down," he said.

"Inside the tent, I think," replied Stretton.

There he read the letter through again. He understood at last what Pamela had meant by the warning which had baffled him. Pamela revealed its meaning now. "Millie is not of those women," she wrote, "who have a vivid remembrance. To hold her, you must be near her. Go away, she will cry her eyes out; stay away for a little while, she will long for your return; make that little while a longer time, she will grow indifferent whether you return or not; prolong that longer time, she will regard your return as an awkwardness, a disturbance; add yet a little more to that longer time, and you will find another occupying your place in her thoughts." Then followed an account of the growth of that dangerous friendship between Millie and Lionel Callon. A summary of Callon's character rounded the description off. "So come home," she concluded, "at once, for no real harm has been done yet."

Stretton understood what the last sentence meant, and he believed it.

Yet his mind revolted against the phrase. Of course, it was Pamela's phrase. Pamela, though frank, was explaining the position in words which could best spare Millie. But it was an unfortunate sentence. It provoked a momentary wave of scorn, which swept over Stretton. There was a postscript: "You yourself are really a good deal to blame." Thus it ran; but Stretton was in no mood to weigh its justice or injustice at the moment. Only this afternoon he had been lying under the palm trees putting together in his mind the sentences which were to tell Millie of his success, to re-establish him in her esteem, and to prepare her for his return. And now this letter had come. He sat for a time frowning at the letter, turning its pages over, glancing now at one phrase, now at another. Then he folded it up. "Callon," he said, softly; and then again, "Lionel Callon. I will talk with Mr. Callon."

For all its softness, his voice sounded to Warrisden the voice of a dangerous man. And after he had spoken in this way he sat in thought, saying nothing, making no movement, and his face gave Warrisden no clue as to what he thought. At the last he stirred in his chair.

"Well?" said Warrisden.

"I shall return at once to England."

"You can?"

"Yes; I shall start to-night," said Stretton.

"We can go back together, then."

"No; that's impossible."

"Why?" asked Warrisden.

"Because I should be arrested if we did," Stretton replied calmly.

"Arrested?" Warrisden exclaimed.

"Yes; you see I shall have to desert to-night."

Warrisden started from his chair.

"Surely there is an alternative?"

"None," replied Stretton; and Warrisden slowly resumed his seat. He was astounded; he had never contemplated this possibility. He looked at Stretton in wonder. He could not understand how a man could speak so calmly of such a plan. Why in the world had Stretton ever joined the Legion if he was so ready, at the first summons, to desert? There seemed an inconsistency. But he did not know Tony Stretton.

"You are surprised," said Tony. "More than surprised--you are rather shocked; but there is no choice for me. I wish with all my heart and soul there were," he suddenly exclaimed, with a sort of pa.s.sion. "I have foreseen this necessity ever since you tapped me on the shoulder in the lane. Because I foresaw it, I would not walk with you to your camp. Were we seen together to-day, the reason of my absence might be the sooner suspected. As it is, I shall get a day's start, for I have a good name in the regiment, and a day's start is all I need."

He spoke sadly and wistfully. He was caught by an inexorable fate, and knew it. He just had to accept the one course open to him.

"You see," he explained, "I am a soldier of the Legion--that is to say, I enlisted for five years' service in the French colonies. I could not get leave."

"Five years!" cried Warrisden. "You meant to stay five years away?"

"No," replied Stretton. "If things went well with me here, as up till to-day they have done, if, in a word, I did what I enlisted to do, I should have gone to work to buy myself out and get free. That can be done with a little influence and time-only time is the one thing I have not now. I must go home at once, since no harm has yet been done.

Therefore I must desert. I am very sorry"--and again the wistfulness became very audible--"for, as I say, I have a good name; amongst both officers and men I have a good name. I should have liked very much to have left a good name behind me. Sergeant Ohlsen"--and as he uttered the name he smiled. "They speak well of Sergeant Ohlsen in the Legion, Warrisden; and to-morrow they will not. I am very sorry. I have good friends amongst both officers and men. I shall have lost them all to-morrow. I am sorry. There is only one thing of which I am glad to-day. I am glad that Captain Tavernay is dead."

Warrisden knew nothing at all of Captain Tavernay. Until this moment he had never heard his name. But Stretton was speaking with a simplicity so sincere, and so genuine a sorrow, that Warrisden could not but be deeply moved. He forgot the urgency of his summons; he ceased to think how greatly Stretton's immediate return would help his own fortunes. He cried out upon the impulse--

"Stay, then, until you can get free without----" And he stopped, keeping unspoken the word upon his lips.

"Without disgrace."

Stretton finished the sentence with a smile.

"Say it! Without disgrace. That was the word upon your tongue. I can't avoid disgrace. I have come to such a pa.s.s in my life's history that, one way or another, I can't avoid it. I thought just at the first moment that I could let things slide and stay. But there's dishonour in that course, too. Dishonour for myself, dishonour for my name, dishonour for others, too, whom it is my business--yes, my business--to keep from dishonour. That's the position--disgrace if I stay, disgrace if I go. It seems to me there's no rule of conduct which applies. I must judge for myself."

Stretton spoke with some anger in his voice, anger with those who had placed him in so cruel a position, anger, perhaps, in some measure, with himself. For in a little while he said--

"It is quite true that I am myself to blame, too. I want to be just. I was a fool not to have gone into the house the evening I was in London, after I had come back from the North Sea. Yes, I should have gone in then; and yet--I don't know. I had thought my course all out.

I don't know."

He had thought his course out, it is true; but he had thought it out in ignorance of his wife's character. That was the trouble, as he clearly saw now.

"Anyhow, I must go to-night," he said, rising from his chair. In an instant he had become the practical man, arranging the means to an end already resolved upon.

"I can borrow money of you?"

"Yes."

"And a mule?"

"Yes."

"Let me choose my mule."

They walked from the tent to where the mules stood picketed. Warrisden pointed to one in the middle of the line.

"That is the strongest."

"I don't want one too strong, too obviously well-fed," said Stretton; and he selected another. "Can I borrow a muleteer for an hour or two?"

"Of course," said Warrisden.

Stretton called a muleteer towards him and gave him orders.

"There is a market to-day," he said. "Go to it and buy." He enumerated the articles he wanted, ticking them off upon his fingers--a few pairs of scissors and knives, a few gaudy silk handkerchiefs, one or two cheap clocks, some pieces of linen, needles and thread--in fact, a small pedlar's pack of wares. In addition, a black jellaba and cap, such as the Jews must wear in Morocco, and a native's underclothes and slippers.