PAGE 19
A Debt Of Honour
by
“It’s no use your going,” he said, his voice hard and mechanical. “There’s nothing to be done. I’ve been as near as it is possible to get. It’s nothing but a raging torrent half a mile across.”
He moved straight forward to a chair, and thrust the boy down into it. There was a terrible stiffness–almost a fixity–about him. He did not seem conscious of the men that crowded round him. It was not his habitual reserve that kept him from collapse at that moment; it was rather a stunned sense of expediency.
“There’s nothing to be done,” he repeated.
He looked down at Ronnie, who was clutching at the table with both hands, and making ineffectual efforts to speak.
“Give him some brandy, one of you!” he said.
Someone held a glass against the boy’s chattering teeth. The colonel poured some spirit into another and gave it to Baring. He took it with a hand that seemed steady, but the next instant it slipped through his fingers and smashed on the floor. He turned sharply, not heeding it. Most of the men in the room were on their way out to view the catastrophe for themselves. He made as if to follow them; then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he paused.
Ronnie, deathly pale, and shaking all over, was fighting his way back to self-control. Baring moved back to him with less of stiffness and more of his usual strength of purpose.
“Do you care to come with me?” he said.
Ronnie looked up at him. Then, though he still shivered violently, he got up without speaking; and, in silence, they went away together.
XV
THE NIGHT OF DESPAIR
Not till more than two hours later did Ronnie break his silence. He would have tramped the hills all night above the flooded valley, but Baring would not suffer it. He dragged him almost forcibly away from the scene of desolation, where the water still flowed strongly, carrying trees and all manner of wreckage on its course. And, though he was almost beside himself, the boy yielded at last. For Baring compelled obedience that night. He took Ronnie back to his own quarters, but on the threshold Ronnie drew back.
“I can’t come in with you,” he said.
Baring’s hand was on his shoulder.
“You must,” he answered quietly.
“I can’t,” Ronnie persisted, with an effort. “I can’t! I’m a cur; I’m worse. You wouldn’t ask me if you knew.”
Baring paused, then, with a strange, unwonted gentleness, he took the boy’s arm and led him in. “Never mind!” he said.
Ronnie went with him, but in Baring’s room he faced him with the courage of despair.
“You’ll have to know it,” he said jerkily. “It was my doing that you–and she–parted as you did. She was going to tell you the truth. I prevented her–for my own sake–not hers. I–I came between you.”
Baring’s hand fell, but neither his face nor his tone varied as he made steady reply.
“I guessed it might be that–afterwards. I was on my way to tell her so when the dam went.”
“That isn’t all,” Ronnie went on feverishly. “I’m worse than that, worse even than she knew. I engaged to ride Hyde’s horse to–to discharge a debt I owed him. I told her it was a debt of honour. It wasn’t. It was to cover theft. I swindled him once, and he found out. I hated riding his horse, but it would have meant open disgrace if I hadn’t. She knew it was urgent. And then at the last moment I was thirsty; I overdid it. No; confound it, I’ll tell you the truth! I went home drunk, too drunk to sit a horse. And so she–she sent me to bed, and went in my place. That’s the thing she wouldn’t tell you, the thing Hyde knew. She always hated the man–always. She only endured him for my sake.” He broke off. Baring was looking at him as if he thought that he were raving. After a moment Ronnie realized this. “It’s the truth,” he said. “I’ve told you the truth. I never won the cup. I didn’t know anything more about it till it was over and she told me. I don’t wonder you find it hard to believe. But I swear it’s the truth. Now let me go–and shoot myself!”