Part 34 (2/2)

Closely confined to his quarters, Jerry Breton knew nothing of her illness, and each hour of her silence, after he believed that she must be aware of his position, buried deeper his hope that she would confess when she discovered that he had a.s.sumed the suspicion of her mad crime.

With bitterness he reflected that the devotion of so fantastic a creature was no more to be trusted than her moral principles; and bound though he felt himself to shelter her, he yearned for the happiness and honor she alone could restore to him.

Whether Pryor lived or died, his own career must end in a darkness whose varying degrees seemed to Jerry scarcely worth remark. This story of treacherous vengeance would be told to his own people, and to the woman he loved. Oh, G.o.d! How his soul adored her purity, her pride, the girlish exaltation for which he had used to profess a tender ridicule!

Had he been cruelly unjust to her, and to those others who were dear to him? Yet would he not have been unutterably base had he crawled to safety across the condemnation of Rosita, whose crime had resulted from misguided love for him?

Like most of his compeers, Jerry had a character which was one of action rather than of thought. In the sleepless thought of those forty-eight hours his boyishness slipped from him forever, and he attained the full stature of his manhood--G.o.d help us!--as most of humanity does so attain in the forcing-house of suffering!

Twilight had come the second time when Captain Blount knocked at the door of Jerry's quarters.

'I think the lieutenant is asleep--and it's the first rest he has had, sir'--Jackson hesitated.

'I've news for him that he will like better than sleeping! His arrest is over!' Blount cried, entering.

Jerry lay back, unawakened, in the only armchair the unluxurious room possessed. Blount stared down at the haggard young face, with a blending of affection and resentment which made a very complete perplexity. Not until he touched the sleeper's shoulder did the heavy lids lift slowly.

'I've nothing to say,' Jerry murmured half consciously.

'I am sure of it, you donkey! Pryor, however, has said something, and the whole crowd of us must beg your pardon, though you have yourself to blame that we suspected you.'

'Pryor has spoken? What does he say?'

'The surgeon will not let him talk; but he insisted on hearing who was accused, and he acquitted you at once. Now I want you to tell me what confounded quixotism kept you silent, at such cost, if, as seems probable from his despondency, he attempted his own life.'

Jerry frowned, and looked away into the gathering shadows.

'Despondent is he, poor chap?' he asked presently.

'Even less thankful to be alive than you seem to be free again.'

Jerry sat upright, his pale face flus.h.i.+ng, his eyes s.h.i.+ning.

'I? Not thankful?' he cried in a voice shaken to the verge of an utter breakdown. 'I have been in h.e.l.l these two days, and you have brought me out--but--but--go away, Blount, or I shall make a fool of myself!'

Lieutenant Breton was breakfasting late the next morning, when Pryor's orderly appeared with an immediate summons to the commanding officer's presence. War, armed _cap-a-pie_, sprang into existence in Jerry's heart at this summons. He had proved Pryor capable of tyranny without reason, and could not hope, when the spirit of such a man had been as cruelly wounded as his body, that he would incline to mercy. But in the blessedness of his own safety he forgave Rosita her silence, and, while aware of the perplexities that would beset him, he vowed that no admission of her guilt should be extorted from him.

There was, however, neither wrath nor challenge in the hollow eyes which confronted him when he stood beside Pryor's bed, and a gaunt hand feebly moved across the counterpane toward him.

'You are a fine fellow, Breton,' the major murmured. 'I beg your pardon!'

Jerry dumbly clasped the quivering fingers.

'They have told me that you flung a pistol over the bluffs,' Pryor continued slowly. 'Of course I know whose pistol it was. But I wish you to understand that the shooting was my fault, like the whole affair. I provoked her with words I had no right to speak; I denied her the mere justice she demanded. Except for your courage I should have brought disgrace upon her, as I have brought death.'

'Death? Rosita?'

'She died last night.'

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