CHAPTER XIV

“Saints to do us good Must be in heaven, I seem to understand: We never find them saints before at least.”

“REALLY, Gladys,” said Mary Huntly firmly, “I think you should give some reason for the way you are behaving. I don’t want to bother you, but there was my own brother, Cyril——”

“What’s the use of fast-days and a cope, Mary? I should give him beefsteaks on Fridays and sausages for vigils, and he would apply for a separation. Besides, I don’t care for him.”

“There is still Alec Bruce,” said Mary Huntly slowly. “He would let you have your own way in everything, and never remember a fast from one year’s end to another. Muriel Dallerton was engaged to him once years ago, before she met Captain Hurstly. It was her fault entirely that it was broken off, she was so down on him. By the way, what has become of your friendship for Muriel?” Gladys shrugged her shoulders.

“Fancy marrying a man who would let you have your own way in everything. I should be bored to death. No, Mary, I am only twenty, and I really will marry somebody sometime I promise you.”

She ignored the question about Muriel and got up idly to look at the paper. After a few minutes it fell on her lap, and she gazed with wide-open eyes straight in front of her. In print, so that all the world could see, ran an announcement of a severe hunting accident to Captain Hurstly of the ——, with the addition that Miss Dallerton, his _fiancée_, and her uncle were soon to be on their way out to India to join him. It was thought probable that in the event of Captain Hurstly’s recovery the young couple would be married out there. Gladys watched with fascinated gaze the skilful movements of the footmen removing tea. She never forgot the delicate traced pattern on the cloth, or the two muffins and a half. She carefully counted and wondered, with an interest out of proportion to its subject, what would eventually be their fate. It did not surprise her that Edith le Mentier should be announced, and she found herself smiling quite naturally at that lady’s little graceful poses, when suddenly she heard herself addressed by name.

“Have you heard of Muriel Dallerton’s great _coup_? My dear child, you really should go in for slum clubs—they’re so taking. I should do it myself if I could ever think of anything to say to those kind of creatures. And then one finds out that she’s been all the time engaged to Jack Hurstly, and is actually going out to India to nurse him through an accident and pull him safely into the bonds of matrimony. If I were a yellow journalist I could make the most touching headlines for it—‘Death or Marriage?’ ‘If he survives the first accident, will he survive the second?’ etc.” Gladys laughed.

“But, Mrs. le Mentier,” she said, “perhaps it’s not so inevitable as all that. Mary was telling me she had been engaged before.” There was a moment’s silence. Mrs. Huntly looked sharply across at her friend, and Edith subdued a smile. She could not resist, however, a little shot.

“Once upon a time there was a naughty boy,” she said, “so Muriel put him in the corner, and he ran away. Isn’t that true, Mary?” The door opened and two maiden ladies, who were very charitable and rather plain, took up Mrs. Huntly’s attention. Gladys drew Edith to the window.

“Is Captain Hurstly a good boy?” she said, smiling. Edith looked down at her caressingly.

“One’s always good if one isn’t found out,” she said.

“But if one is found out, one is much worse,” persisted Gladys.

“I don’t think Muriel ever cared for Alec Bruce,” said Mrs. le Mentier. “Why, don’t you wish her to marry Jack?” she added, glancing at the girl tenderly.

“I’m so sorry for the doctor,” smiled Gladys.

“If Muriel knew,” Gladys continued, “that he was not such a good boy, she would be certain to put him in the corner even longer, because she does care for him.”

“If she sees him now while he’s ill she’ll give in. We all do when Nature takes it into her head to punish,” mused Mrs. le Mentier.

“Then if she knew soon, she wouldn’t go?” asked Gladys. “I’m going to see her to-morrow,” she added.

“Dear Muriel,” said Mrs. le Mentier.

“Shall I take her any message from you?” Gladys questioned.

“I think,” said Mrs. le Mentier, “that I must go myself to wish her _bon voyage_.”

Mrs. le Mentier went home and arranged two little packets of letters—letters that might have been burned, that ought to have been burned, only that some women have the fatal habit of holding on to the wrong things.

Gladys went upstairs and cried, and hated herself, and bathed her eyes, and hated Muriel more.

Meanwhile, quite unconsciously, Muriel packed her trunk and gave last directions to Cynthia about the club and its management in her absence, and in her heart she prayed, “O God, let him live—let him live.”

And Jack Hurstly fought with death and heat and India through long hours of breathless night.

The boat did not sail until evening, and as Muriel parted from Cynthia Grant to go on to her uncle’s on a cold, chilly November morning a hansom drove to the door, and Gladys, deeply veiled, sprang out. She greeted Muriel with her old tender affection. In a minute or more they were rattling away through the dim streets together.

“I can’t understand,” said Gladys at last, “what it all means. You cannot be breaking your word to me—you cannot. I have trusted you so. But I have waited so long for an explanation, and it has never come, and now you are going to him.” Muriel looked steadily at her companion with unfaltering, sad eyes.

“I made a terrible mistake,” she said gently. “For a while I thought it in my power to give to you that which can’t be transferred. But why should we talk of this now?—even while we speak he may have passed beyond it all!” Gladys wrung her hands together desperately.

“He is mine,” she muttered—“mine—and I shall never see his face again!” Then suddenly she controlled herself. “You have broken your word?” she asked.

“I have,” said Muriel.

“Do you expect a marriage founded on broken promises to prosper?”

“Hush! he may be dead,” said Muriel.

The hansom drove up to the door; the two girls looked at each other; Gladys did not get out, but as Muriel moved towards the house she leaned out of the window. “I pray to God he is dead,” she said quietly, then she gave the address to the cabman. She left a card at Mrs. le Mentier’s door: “Muriel is with her uncle—they go to-night.”