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He flung round distractedly, but Baring stopped him. There was no longer any hardness about him, only compassionate kindness, as he made him sit down, and gravely shut the door. When he spoke, it was not to utter a word of reproach or blame.

“No, don’t go, boy!” he said, in a tone that Ronnie never forgot. “We’ll face this thing together. May God help us both!”

And Ronnie, yielding once more, leaned his head in his hands, and burst into anguished tears.

XVI

THE COMING OF HOPE

How they got through the dragging hours of that awful night neither of them afterwards quite knew. They spoke very little, and slept not at all. When morning came at last they were still sitting in silence as if they watched the dead, linked together as brothers by a bond that was sacred.

It was soon after sunrise that a message came for Ronnie from the colonel’s bungalow next door to the effect that the commanding-officer wished to see him. He looked at Baring as he received it.

“I wish you’d come with me,” he said.

Baring rose at once. He knew that the boy was depending very largely upon his support just then. The sunshine seemed to mock them as they went. It was a day of glorious Indian winter, than which there is nothing more exquisite on earth, save one of English spring. The colonel met them on his own veranda. He noted Ronnie’s haggard face with a quick glance of pity.

“I sent for you, my lad,” he said, “because I have just heard a piece of news that I thought I ought to pass on at once.”

“News, sir?” Ronnie echoed the word sharply.

“Yes; news of your sister.” The colonel gave him a keen look, then went on in a tone of reassuring kindness that both his listeners found maddeningly deliberate. “She was not, it seems, in the bungalow at the time the dam burst. She was out on the hillside, and so–My dear fellow, for Heaven’s sake pull yourself together! Things are better than you think. She–” He did not finish, for Ronnie suddenly sprang past him with a loud cry. A girl’s figure had appeared in the doorway of the colonel’s drawing-room. Ronnie plunged in, and it was seen no more.

The colonel turned to Baring for sympathy, and found that the latter had abruptly, almost violently, turned his back. It surprised him considerably, for he had often declared his conviction that under no circumstances would this officer of his lose his iron composure. Baring’s behaviour of the night before had seemed to corroborate this; in fact, he had even privately thought him somewhat cold-blooded.

But his present conduct seemed to indicate that even Baring was human, notwithstanding his strength; and in his heart the colonel liked him for it. After a moment he began to speak, considerately ignoring the other’s attitude.

“She was providentially on the further hill when it happened, and she had great difficulty in getting round to us; lost her way several times, poor girl, and only panic-stricken natives to direct her. It’s been a shocking disaster–the native village entirely swept away, though not many European lives lost, I am glad to say. But Hyde is among the missing. You knew Hyde?”

“I knew him–well.” Baring’s words seemed to come with an effort.

“Ah, well, poor fellow; he probably didn’t know much about it. Terrible, a thing of this sort. It’s impossible yet to estimate the damage, but the whole of the lower valley is devastated. The Magician’s bungalow has entirely disappeared, I hear. A good thing the old man was away from home.”

At this point, to Colonel Latimer’s relief, Baring turned. He was paler than usual, but there was no other trace of emotion about him.

“If you will allow me,” he said, “I should like to go and speak to her, too.”

“Certainly,” the colonel said heartily. “Certainly. Go at once! No doubt she is expecting you. Tell the youngster I want him out here!”

And Baring went.

* * * * *

If Hope did expect him, she certainly did not anticipate the manner of his coming. The man who entered the colonel’s drawing-room was not the man who had striven with a mastery that was almost brutal to bring her into subjection only the day before. She could not have told wherein the difference lay, but she was keenly aware of its existence. And because of her knowledge she felt no misgiving, no shadow of fear. She did not so much as wait for him to come to her. Simply moved by the woman’s instinct that cannot err, she went straight to him, and so into his arms, clinging to him with a little sobbing laugh, and not speaking at all, because there were no words that could express what she yet found it so sublimely easy to tell him. Baring did not speak either, but he had a different reason for his silence. He only held her closely to him, till presently, raising her face to his, she understood. And she laughed again, laughed through tears.

“Weren’t you rather quick to give up–hope?” she whispered.

He did not answer her, but she found nothing discouraging in his silence. Rather, it seemed to inspire her. She slipped her arms round his neck. Her tears were nearly gone.

“Hope doesn’t die so easily,” she said softly. “And I’ll tell you another thing that is ever so much harder to kill, that can never die at all, in fact; or, perhaps I needn’t. Perhaps you can guess what it is?”

And again he did not answer her. He only bent, holding her fast pressed against his heart, and kissed her fiercely, passionately, even violently, upon the lips.

“My Hope!” he said. “My Hope!”