He was silent a few moments, pulling at his cigar: then, "Look here, Lance," he said. "I've got a question to ask. You won't like it. I don't either. But the truth is ... I'm bothered to know what is ... or has been ... between you and...."

"Drop it, Roy." There was pain and impatience in Desmond's tone. "I'm not going to talk about _that_."

Flat opposition gave Roy precisely the spur he needed.

"I'm afraid _I_'ve got to, though." The statement was placable but decisive. "I can't go on this way. It's getting on my nerves----"

"Devil take your nerves," said Lance politely. Then--with an obvious effort--"Has she--said anything?"

"No."

"Then why the h.e.l.l can't you let be!"

"I _shall_ let be--altogether, if this goes on;--this infernal awkwardness between us; and the things she says--the way she looks ...

almost as if she cares."

"Well, I give you my oath--she doesn't. I suppose I ought to know?"

"That depends how things were before I came up. She's twice let your name slip out, unawares. And at Anarkalli she was extraordinarily upset.

And to-day--about your hand. Then, riding home, I met Mrs Ranyard. And she started talking ... hinting at a private engagement----"

"Mrs Ranyard deserves to have her tongue removed. She'd tell any lie about another woman."

"Quito so. But is it a lie? It fits in too neatly with--the other things----"

Lance gave him a sidelong look. Their faces were just visible in the moonlight.

"Jealous--are you?"--His tone was almost tender.--"You d.a.m.ned lucky devil--you've no cause to be."

That natural inference startlingly revealed to Roy that jealousy had little or nothing to do with his trouble; and so great was the relief of open speech between them, that instinctively he told truth.

"N-no. I'm bothered about _you_."

"Good G.o.d!" Desmond's abrupt laugh had no mirth in it. "_Me?_"

"Yes--naturally. If it amounted to ... an engagement, and I charged in and upset everything ... I can't forgive myself ... or her----"

At that Desmond sat forward, obstructive no longer. "If you're going so badly off the rails, you must have it straight. And ... confound you!...

it hurts----"

"I can see that. And it's more or less my doing----"

"On the contrary ... it was primarily _my_ doing ... as you justly pointed out to me a week or two ago."

Roy groaned. The irony of the situation stung like a whip-lash. "_Did_ it amount to an engagement?" he persisted.

"There or thereabouts." Lance paused and took a long pull at his cigar.

"_But_--it was quite between ourselves--in fact, conditional on ... the headway I could manage to make. She--cared, in a way. Not--as I do. That was one hitch. The other was Oh 'Ell's antipathy to soldiers, as husbands for her precious family. She--Rose--knew there would be ructions; a downright tussle, in fact. Well--she'll go almost any length to avoid ructions; specially with her mother. I don't blame her. The woman's a caution. So--she shirked facing the music ... till she felt quite sure of herself...."

"_Till_ she felt sure of herself, there should have been _no_ engagement," Roy decreed, amazed at his own rising anger. "Unfair on you."

Desmond's smile was the ghost of its normal self. "You always were a bit of a purist, Roy! Besides--it was my doing again. I pressed the point.

And I think ... she liked me ... loving her. She really seemed to be coming my way--till _you_ turned up----" He clenched his hand and leaned back again, drawing a deep breath. "I'm forcing myself to tell you all this--since you've asked for it--because I won't have you blaming _her_----"

Roy said nothing. Remembering how, throughout, the initiative had been hers, how hard he had striven against being ensnared, he did blame her, a good deal more than he could very well admit to this friend, whose single-hearted devotion made his own mere mingling of infatuation and pa.s.sion seem artificial as gaslight in the blaze of dawn.--But knowing so much, he must know all.

"How long--was it on?"

"Oh, about three weeks before you came. _I_ was on a long while. Before Christmas."

"Since when has it been--off?"

Lance hesitated. "Well--things became shaky after Kapurthala. That day--the wedding, you remember?--I spoke rather straight ... about you.

I saw you were getting keen. And I didn't want you to come a cropper----"

"Why the devil didn't you tell me the _truth_?"

Lance set his lips. "Of course I wanted to. But--it was difficult. She said--not any one. Made a point of it. Not even Paul. And I was keen for her to feel quite free; no slur on her--if things fell through. So--as I couldn't warn you, I spoke to her. Perhaps I was a fool. Women are queer. You can never be sure ... and it seemed to have quite the wrong effect. Then I saw she was really losing her head over you---- Natural enough. So I simply stood by. If she really wanted _you_--not me, that was another affair. And it's plain ... she did."

"But when--did she _make_ it plain?" Roy insisted, feeling more and more as if the ground were giving way under his feet.

"Just before the Gym. That ... was why...." He looked full at Roy now.

His eyes darkened with pain. "I felt like murdering you that day, Roy.

Afterwards ... well--one managed to carry on somehow. One always can--at a pinch ... _you_ know."

"My G.o.d! It's the bitterest, ironical tangle!" Roy burst out with a smothered vehemence that told its own tale. "You _ought_ to have insisted about me, Lance. I wouldn't for fifty worlds...."

"Of course you wouldn't. Don't fret, old man. And don't blame _her_."

"Blame or no, I can't pretend it doesn't alter things ... spoil things, badly...."

He broke off, startled by the change in Desmond. His face was drawn. He was shivering violently.

"Lance--_what_ is it? Fever? Have you been feeling bad?"

Desmond set his lips to steady them. "On and off--at Mess. Touch of the sun, perhaps. I'll get to bed and souse myself with quinine."

But he was so obviously ill that Roy paid no heed. "Well, I'm going to send for Collins instanter."

"Don't make an a.s.s of yourself, Roy," Lance flashed out: but his hands were shaking: his lips were shaking. He was no longer in command of affairs....

While the message sped on its way, Roy got him to bed somehow; eased things a little with hot bottles and brandy; nameless terrors knocking at his heart....

In less than no time Collins appeared, with the Colonel; and their faces told Roy that his terror was only too well founded....

Within an hour he knew the worst--acute blood-poisoning from the _lathi_ wound.

"Any hope----?" he asked the genial doctor, while Paul Desmond knelt by the bed speaking to his brother in low tones.